Cordwood Puzzle Too
Cordwood Puzzle Too
Attention ;)
This project is now available at Pimoroni! Click here to go there.
A second in a series of cordwood puzzles
Our first Cordwood Puzzle was very much loved, so we created a second in the series.
In the 1950s and 1960s inventive engineers saved space by using the 'cordwood' assembly, where components were sandwiched in between two circuits boards. This construction became less useful with reduced component sizes, PCB manufacturing advances, more compact integration, and surface mount technology, but is still a lovely piece of history. Combining both old and new, the Cordwood Puzzle is a tribute to this construction and to the engineers who came up with it.
The puzzle is to correctly assemble the circuit with the components at hand. Once completed, all LEDs light up when power is applied. When connected to a controller board each LED can be individually controlled.
Unfortunately(!), all the comprehensive assembly guides were mysteriously missing from the kits.
Cordwood Puzzle Too was project #13 of the Boldport Club.
What’s included
8x 10KΩ 2W resistor, Multicomp MCMF02WJJ103A10
8x 220Ω 2W resistor, Multicomp MCF 2W 220R
1x 1uF ceramic capacitor, AVX SA305E105MAR
8x n-channel MOSFET transistor, Fairchild 2N7000
1x 10-pin through-hole header, Multicomp MC34739
4x 10mm yellow LED, Kingbright L-813YD
4x 10mm green LED, Kingbright L-813GD
1x 25mm M3 standoff, ETTINGER 05.03.251
2x M3 screws
2x Identical PCBs
Piece of 0.84mm diameter 20AWG hookup wire
Assembly
Challenge yourself by assembling the kit without further instruction. Before you do that, however, note the following: When connecting to a board, make sure that the I/Os can tolerate the voltage levels that are applied to the Cordwood! Also, make sure that you do not short power and ground!
Keeping with the theme a puzzle we do not supply full assembly instructions. Below is a reference gallery of the completed article. The board itself has assembly hints; can you find them? Finally, the assembly instructions for the first Cordwood Puzzle could be helpful ;)
Additional information
Community contributions to this project
Open source circuit board design files
