Soldering 16-chan OpenBCI

For a while now, I’ve been using the 8-channel version of OpenBCI.  You can see some of my EEG data here and some of my accelerometer data here.  Recently, I’ve been interested in getting more EEG channels, which means that I have turned my attention to the 16-channel version of OpenBCI.  The 16-channel version consists of a single 8-channel OpenBCI board with a additional “Daisy Module” to provide the additional 8-channels.  Today, I’m going to show a few pictures of the soldering necessary to assemble these two boards into a working unit.

OpenBCI Daisy Module (Left) with OpenBCI 32-Bit Board (Right) along with their male and female headers (bottom).

I started the assembly process by reading through the assembly instructions (with its pictures) as provided on the OpenBCI website.  Those instructions were good, though I thought that some additional illustration would be helpful to others.  Hence, the reason for today’s post.

Parts and Components:  As you can see in the picture above, the OpenBCI boards themselves are fully assembled.  But, like many Arduino-style kits, you do need to solder on some pin headers in order to connect the boards together.  To make this easy, I found that the OpenBCI kit comes with the correct male pin header for the Daisy module as well as the correct collection of female headers for the base OpenBCI board.  Great!

A Trick for Soldering Headers:  I started by looking to solder the female headers to the base OpenBCI board.  Based on my experience soldering headers to various Arduino kits, I know that soldering the female headers can be annoying because it is hard to hold the header in place while your two hands are already busy holding the soldering iron and the solder.  To overcome this problem, I used a trick that I saw a while ago where you use a solderless breadboard to hold your female headers vertically in place, hands-free.  It’s pretty sweet trick.  In addition to a solderless breadboard, you need some cheap double-ended pins (see below left).  I got mine from Adafruit, but they are standard items available from a number of vendors.  I only ever this pins for this soldering trick, so I bought them once and they’ve lived in my toolbox ever since.

Use double-ended extra-long pin headers along with a solderless breadboard as a trick to hold the female headers in place.  The long pins will go into the bread board.  The short stubs off the top of the female header get soldered into the OpenBCI board.

As seen in the picture on the right, above, you stick the extra-long headers into the female header that you are looking to solder to the OpenBCI board.  Then, as shown in the picture below, left, you stick the extra-long headers into the solderless breadboard, which leaves the short pins (which are the solderable part of the female header) sticking up in the air.

Use the extra-long pin header to hold the female header onto the solderless breadboard. Then flip the OpenBCI board upside-down and place the OpenBCI board onto the solder pins of the female header.  You’re ready to solder those pins!

Soldering the Female Headers:  Now, you can place the OpenBCI board over those solder pins (see the right picture, above).  Note that the OpenBCI board has been flipped over so that it is face-down.  It’s important that you solder the header onto the correct side of the board!  Once you have confirmed that everything is sitting correctly, you can start soldering.

Soldering each one of the pins in this header. Then repeat for all of the other headers.

After repeating this process for all of the other female headers, the base OpenBCI board is fully prepared.

The base OpenBCI 32-bit board is finished.

Preparing the Daisy Module:  With the base OpenBCI board finished, I turned to the Daisy module.  Here, you start but using your pliers to snap apart the single, long, male pin header into the smaller pieces needed to fit into the different spots of the Daisy module.

Prepare the male pin headers for the Daisy board.  Snap the long pin header into the correct number of pieces.

Use the Base Board as Your Fixture:  Then, as before, it can be tricky to solder these headers when your hands are full with the soldering iron and solder.  The tick this time, is to use the base OpenBCI board itself as your fixture.  This is a classic trick for soldering Arduino shields.  As shown in the picture below, left, insert the male pin headers into the base board’s female headers.  Do this for all of the male headers that you will solder to the Daisy module.   Once they’re in place, you can simply place the Daisy module onto the pins (see below, right) and everything will be nicely aligned and ready to solder.

(Left) Insert the male pin headers into the female headers that were just soldered into the base OpenBCI board.  This holds them in the right place.  Then, place the Daisy board on top so that you can solder the pins into the Daisy board.

Solder the Daisy Module:  With the pins all in place, solder the headers into place.  With everything so nicely held, this part is fast!  For me, it went so quickly that I forgot to solder one of the headers into place.  Ooops!  So, I went back and soldered the remaining pins.  No problem.

Soldering the pins to the Daisy board.  Be sure to solder all of the pins on all of the new headers (I forgot one header when I did it)

Ready for EEG:  With the last soldering complete, the two boards are mated and I’m ready to collect 16-channels of EEG.  This is gonna be fun!

I’m finished!