The orange LEDs go into D9-D10, D39, D40. The red one goes into D42
and the green one into D41. The 4-legged RGB LED goes into D43. One of
its legs is longer than the others, that one goes into the hole marked
with a “+”. The 4 clear LEDs are a super bright orange type used to
light up your fingers from below the touchpads, and they go into the 4
LED footprints at the bottom of the PCB. Do not solder anything yet!
Now that all the components are in place, it’s time to combine front
panel and PCB. Make sure all inserted components are standing up
straight and carefully place the front panel onto the PCB, keeping
both of them parallel to each other and making sure all the components
find their way through the holes. The spacers behind the touchpad
screws need to go through the holes on the PCB. Don’t worry about the
two 5-pin headers at this time. Once everything fits together neatly,
secure RV1 to RV6 with nuts from the top. Flip everything over and
attach the 5 remaining brass nuts to the 5 spacers protruding through
the PCB. Tighten them well, as they make electrical contacts, but be
careful: Right next to them are some very small SMD components that
are easily damaged, so do not push your wrench or pliers down towards
the PCB while securing the nuts!
Place the front panel face down onto some sort of support on the
sides. If you’re building the desktop version, you can simply lay it
face down into the case. This is to make sure that all Thonkiconn
sockets will sit close to the front panel. Now solder all pins on the
Thonkiconn sockets and switches, but do not solder any pins on the
pots, LEDs or 5-pin headers yet! While soldering, pay close attention
to those areas that have a high concentration of SMD parts. There is
always enough space to solder the pins even with a standard tip, but
care must be taken not to accidentally move the iron and desolder,
move or damage an SMD part.
