Adding Surface Mount Power to IOIO

Some career-oriented things have kept me largely out of the Bad Lab. I finally decided to dust of the soldering station and get a permanent power connector surface mounted to my IOIO board.

I tackled this project before I headed to work…I think the pre-coffee pre-jitter scenario worked out well. Anyhow, this is the component from SparkFun:

surface mount power jack
tiny surface mount is tiny

It is a simple two pin surface mount compact connector. Nice current rating, so I am hoping it will give me enough juice to pull 5V in my pull-up project.

The issue to overcome in the actual soldering was keeping this little sucker in place and stable to get the first joint in place. My solution, once again, ended up involving my adjustable clamps. These things are great, especially compared to the ‘helper hands’ alligator clip stand. Wonky hands would be more apt.

clampy
+2 clamps

For a little connector, it seems to be fairly secure. I also picked up a barrel jack to two pin connector from SparkFun.

mount surface
surface mount mounted

Hooked up to a wall wart…survey says:

ioio power
power-ed up

We have power. I will test it against some loads, and get back on the pull-up project. Here goes nothing…