Assembling RhoCoCo

Project Assembling a RhoCoCo home computer
This text describes how to assemble a RhoCoCo home computer from two PCB's, ten (socketed) integrated circuits, a dozen connectors and various other parts.
Status	Initializing
Contact	Mahjongg
Last Update	2019-03-30

We need, two PCB's, the parts from this list: File:RHOCOCO rev 1.8 assembly list.pdf

a soldering iron, and this assembly drawing to locate each part. File:Rhococo rev 1.8 component overview.pdf

In principle we start by soldering the only SMT part to the PCB, the SD-card-connector, this might have been pre-assembled for you. Then we do the resistors, and the diodes by bending them into shape.

I practice I decided I wanted to build up the keyboard first, but quickly ran up to a problem, all the holes for the keys were too small to fit the pins of the keys through, and I had to drill all 400 holes with a 1.5mm drill (through a stack of three PCB's) The I soldered the keys, and two connector strips to the PCB's. This is the result: .

Farnell only delivered 49 keys, not 50, so I left the middle of the three-key spacebar out for now.

Next up was soldering the SD-card holder, as I was already afraid of, the card holder had two plastic pins, I had no holes for in the PCB. The datasheet of the card holder was very fuzzy about these two pins, and I could not determine if they really existed. Easy solution was to cut the pins off. Fortunately all the other (solder) pins seemed to be placed correctly.

This is the PCB, with only the card reader soldered to it.

You can also see a resistor in this picture, and that it only just fits, with its leads bent straight at the body of the resistor.

Then I started soldering the resistors, here you can see the 240 Ohm resistors, before soldering, legs bent outwards a bit to keep them in place for soldering.