I was a bit bored today and as I am still waiting for some parts to arrive, I soldered up one of the extra sets for the SHC’s. Bending the wires for the ESP32 took the longest at about 10 minutes and the rest of the build was done in under an hour. On this point, looking at the onstep forum, its a common problem to get the version of ESP32 microcontroller I have, even if the correct versions are ordered. However they do work, it just requires a little extra effort.
A few tips on my process
1. Bend the pins first and do them one at a time, testing after each bend. The temptation is to do a few at a time. Don’t. I rushed my second build and it took forever to get right. This time it was way faster overall!
2. Bend the pins on the side CLOSEST to the resistor pack. If you don’t, the ESP32 gets in the way of the board mounting holes. As a side note, I soldered in the ESP32 first and that was ok and didn’t impact the rest of the build.
3. Attach the resistors from the rear and lay them flat. Super easy to solder and this gives the processor the room it needs.
4. Solder the micro joystick BEFORE the other switches. The little points are fiddly,so you need a good join. Also, don’t linger with the iron. On build 1 I did and it melted something inside so the joystick only works in 4 directions. Good thing I had 10
. If your resistors, capacitors and RJ 12 connector are in you can test the SHC with the onstep controller at this point.
I’ve attached a few pics of how it looks.
Happy building!