In the first part of the assembly process, you’ll be mostly soldering.
Later on, you’re going to leave your soldering iron aside and connect all the casings together - like a tiny puzzle!
Finally, you will finish the process with a little bit of bolt screwing and playing around with the batteries.
After that comes the easiest part - playing games and enjoying the console!
Of course, the learning is never over, since there will be plenty of time later to create and code your own games, share them with your friends and break all of the high scores to prove you’re the best of all Nibble gamers!
But that will have to wait, for now…
Part One - The buttons
Here you will need the main board and all the buttons
The main part of the console, besides the screen, are the buttons. In order to move, shoot, dodge, jump, and pause in games, you need to have some kind of input.
Buttons are the most commonly used input and there are a total of seven of them (eight if you include the reset button, which is located at the top of the console and is already soldered on).
The buttons consist of two parts - mechanical button parts and the button caps. Buttons can work even without the caps, but pressing them with the caps on feels way nicer and they look a lot cooler.
Let’s solder our first component - a button.
Take one of the mechanical button parts and put it through the holes. There are a total of seven button placement locations, each with four little holes, that mark the following buttons: MENU, UP, LEFT, DOWN, RIGHT, A, and B.
Make sure to place the buttons on the correct side. You should be able to see the little button text and white outlines when placing the buttons. The solder joint is located on the back of the console (the side with the white patterns on it!).
The button pins need to go through all the way
The buttons should go through the holes all the way and make a little click when it falls in place. Got it? Awesome, now let’s solder!
You can also place all seven buttons and then solder them all at once since the buttons should be held in place even without soldering them (but they wouldn’t work that way since there is no connection).
After getting the power to the soldering iron, turn it on by pressing the metal button or keeping your finger on the sensor. Wait for at least thirty seconds, so it can heat up.
Make sure that all the buttons are sitting flat before you solder!
In case you have a soldering iron with a touch sensor, don't remove your finger from the sensor as long as you are soldering since removing the finger from the sensor will turn the iron off!
After placing the component in the proper place (pins through the little holes), place the main board on the surface in front of you and pick up the soldering iron.
Turn the main board around, so that you’re facing the white patterned side, take a piece of solder & the soldering iron in your hands, and start heating it up.
The solder is needed in order to make an electric connection
Firstly, carefully place the soldering iron on one of the pins, so that it’s touching both the pin and the little plated area around the hole that the pin is going through.
Leave it like that for about five to ten seconds to allow it to heat up the pin/plate and then apply the tip of the solder to it. The solder should melt with ease and spread evenly around the joint.
Bring everything together and watch it melt
Make sure to create a volcano-like shape so that the base of the joint is filled with solder but the top is getting thinner and thinner.
Great! You’ve just created your first soldering joint on your Nibble!
Repeat the process for the other three pins. Make sure that the button is still sitting flat and fully pushed from the other side or hasn't moved sideways in any directions.
When all 4 joints are fully soldered, the button isn't moving and it can still be clicked - the first component is soldered!
Only when all four pins are soldered the button will work properly
Congratulations! One down, many more to go.
If you accidentally got any solder on the part of the board that is not plated or if you just put too much solder, bring the soldering iron to it so it “sucks up” the solder you don’t want on the pin. After that, clean the soldering iron by using your sponge. Repeat this until the pin is looking like the volcano-like shape mentioned before!
Cleaning the tip of the soldering iron
The same process must be applied to all of the buttons. Take your time, be patient, and remember - always double-check your solder joints!
Soldering the rest of the buttons
After all seven buttons are soldered, a total of 28 connections must’ve been made. Check if all of the buttons can be clicked.
If all is well, move onto the next step. If you’re unsure about some solder joints, it’s always better to fix them rather than leaving them at “might” work. You should always make sure everything is as good as it can be.
REMEMBER
Clean the soldering iron using the sponge and place it on the metal holder.
Part two - the switch
There is another type of input that you’re not going to use as much as buttons, but it is still very important - the power switch.
Unfortunately, the console cannot stay powered on all the time, and sometimes you have to switch it off. This is where the switch comes in. You can easily switch the console on and off with one simple push.
Before soldering this part, try to switch it around a few times. Each time the state of the switch changes, you should hear a loud click. So far, it’s not really doing anything, but soon enough, it will give life to your Nibble whenever you want it to.
The process of soldering this component is exactly the same as the previous ones.
Take the switch and put the pins through the holes so that the switch lies on the front (yellow) part of the mainboard and the pins stick out of the back (mostly white side).
Try to wiggle the switch when pushing it inside since it may require a bit of force to fit in properly.
Make sure all the pins go through all the way so that the component is as close to the board as possible.
Turn your console around, take the soldering iron from the stand, clean it using the sponge, and begin to solder the pins in place.
Starting the soldering process
Soldering these pins requires a little bit more precision since they are close together so it’s a lot easier to bridge them accidentally - like this!
Example of a solder bridge
Bridging
Bridging is most common when you are soldering two pins very close to each other.
Bridging is where you’re creating a connection between two pins that should not be connected, which will cause many problems inside a circuit and can ultimately lead to a short circuit that will damage your components!
If you bridge the pins, you must un-bridge them before continuing with the build.
Breaking off the bridged joint is easy - just place the heated soldering iron in the middle, take the excessive solder off, and clean the iron on the sponge. Repeat the process several times if needed - heat & clean - until the bridge is removed. Clean the soldering iron so you don’t have any residual solder on it.
Pins should look like this after the bridge has been removed (or if the bridge was never there)
After soldering all of the five pins, try the switch a few times. It should click when switched on/off. If everything seems alright, continue with the build.
Part three - The screen
Now onto the big one - the display! This thing makes everything that is happening inside the console actually come to life. All of the pixels, colors, characters, letters, and numbers are shown on this beauty.
The screen goes into the middle pins on the console
Since this is pretty much the most important part of the console, together with the processor, you should treat it with care.
You’ll notice a little protective layer on top of it, which you can take off by pulling the little green part. Don’t do that just yet, this ensures the screen stays protected all the way through the soldering part.
After you’ve done your soldering, take it off so your screen can really shine! Everything will work just as well even if the protector remains on, so don’t worry too much about it.
Inserting the screen is pretty much the same as with the other components. Just make sure to push the pins all the way through so that the screen fits firmly in place.
Put all of the pins through the holes
Even though the screen has its protector, try to touch the black part as little as possible, so that it doesn’t get damaged. Especially avoid touching any part of the screen with the soldering iron, hot or cold (except the pins, duh!).
Turn the console around and solder all of the pins. Beware of the previously mentioned bad solder joints and solder bridges.
Since the screen should be vertically soldered to the board, let's handle this part with care.
- Solder the first pin in the row.
- Check if the screen sits flat on the board and is vertically soldered to the board.
- If needed, resolder the first pin in the row to make the screen more vertical or closer to the board.
- Resume with soldering the rest of the pins.
Before starting the soldering process, make sure to place some soft material under the screen so that it doesn’t get damaged or scratched while facing down on the table.
Soldering time!
After you finish soldering, check all the joints and make sure the screen is sitting flat and firm on the mainboard. Any sideways movement is not good and should be checked and fixed.
Do not take off the protective plastic just yet! We know it’s satisfying to peel it off, but leave it for later.
Make sure your soldering joints are as clean as possible
Part four - The battery holder
This part is probably the easiest one to solder in this whole process.
While it does take up a large part of the console, it only has two pins.
Unlike all of the other parts, this one goes onto the back of the console (the mostly white side). The pins should go through the holes so that they’re visible from the front side, the one where the screen and the buttons are located.
Put the battery holder all the way through
Again, pick up the soldering iron and solder the two pins. As easy as it gets!
Clean the soldering iron and put it on the metal stand away from the console.
Even though the soldering process is pretty much over, do not unplug the iron just yet. We must first check if everything is working properly before doing that.
If you need help with cleaning the tip of your soldering iron, please check our
video tutorial.
