Tutorial: Assembling your Wand-Ring wand

This tutorial assumes you have all of the electronic components for a Wand-Ring wand, and that your Prop-Maker FeatherWing already has header pins soldered onto it. If you don’t have all of the components, or need to solder pins to your Prop-Maker FeatherWing, go tend to these requirements and come on back. We’ll still be here. 🙂

Step 1: Battery to On-Off Switch

Attach the male 2-pin JST connector on the LiPo battery to the female 2-pin connector on the JST extension with on/off button.

Step 2: On-Off Switch to HUZZAH32

Attach the male 2-pin JST connector on the extension with on/off button to the female 2-pin connector on the HUZZAH32.

Step 3: Gather Extra Wire

Gather up most of the excess on/off extension cabling and bind it (tape works well).

Step 4: Seat the Battery

Gently seat the battery between the stacking headers of the HUZZAH32 with the wires sticking out over the USB micro port on the HUZZAH32.

Step 5: HUZZAH32 to Prop-Maker

Carefully align the header pins of the Prop-Maker FeatherWing with the stacking headers on the HUZZAH32.

When every pin is aligned with its correct stacking header hole, gently press the Prop-Maker FeatherWing’s pins into the holes until it is seated flush with the top edge of the HUZZAH32’s stacking header.

When you’re done, you’ll have a nice Prop-Maker FeatherWing – LiPo battery – HUZZAH32 sandwich.

Step 6: LED Strip to Prop-Maker

Attach the male 3-pin JST connector on the LED strip to the female 3-pin JST connector on the Prop-Maker FeatherWing.

Step 7: Speaker to Prop-Maker

Attach the male 2-pin JST connector on the speaker to the female 2-pin speaker connector on the Prop-Maker FeatherWing.

…and that’s it! You’re done assembling the electronics!

Oh wait, there’s one more step… You need to snip off all of those pesky pins on the bottom of the HUZZAH32. To do that, you’ll need a a wire-cutter. Something like https://www.adafruit.com/product/152 will serve you just fine – Note: A diagonal snipper will make you happier than a straight one. When you snip the pins off, don’t snip off the solder bead, but get as much of the unsoldered pin as possible. Also, you’ll either want to wear safety glasses or cover the entire thing with something lightweight to catch the pins as they fly off. They’re tiny, pointy, and they’ll fly off in unexpected directions at high speed; we don’t want you to get hurt!

Next Steps…

Now’s a good time to charge your Wand-Ring wand’s battery. Connect your HUZZAH32 to a power source with a USB micro (not mini) connector. When you do, an amber LED near the HUZZAH32’s USB micro port should light up.

If it does not, click the on/off button once – that should do the trick.

After that, you could upload software to your wand or put your wand electronics in a 3D printed wand shell.