Electronic Project: The Making of an Electronic Dice

The best DIY projects are the ones that give you joy when used. And as every board game enthusiast knows, a dice is usually the most important piece of every board game. Therefore, if you have ever found yourself in search of throwing dice to use during family gatherings or on camping trips, then you’ll understand the importance of a digital dice.

In today’s post, the design and development of a digital or electronic dice will be the focus. And we will kick start this quick DIY project by highlighting the tools you will need. Now, let’s start with the parameters of this simple DIY task.

Project Duration: 50-60 minutes depending on your electronic expertise.

Difficulty Level: Easy

The Equipment Needed for This DIY Project

The number of components you will need to working with are 10 in number. These components include the following:

A Red Printed circuit board
7 pieces of milky LED display lights
A Vibration motor
Cubic enclosure made from acrylic
A microcontroller
A Transistor
A Resistor
Securing Bolts and Nuts
A switch
A Tilt Sensor

Note that you can find all the components in the DIY Swing Shaking LED Vibrating dice here.

Steps to Building Your Electronic Dice

Now we have the components necessary to execute the project, here are the steps.

Start by installing the transistor and resistor while ensuring the transistors shape matches the silkscreen on the PCB. The image below should serve as a guide.

Solder the transistor and resistor into place. Ensure you cut out the remaining leads on these components.

Install the vibrating motor and solder it to the PCB. When doing this, you must ensure the cable is adequately cut and shaped to enable the soldering process is easy to accomplish. You can take a look at the image below and copy its shape.

Before soldering the vibrating motor, ensure you remove the protective foil on the face of the motor and stick the motor onto the PCB. The stuck motor can be seen in the image below.

Ensure the cables attached to the vibrating motor are properly aligned with the provided track pads on the PCB and solder the cables. You can see the alignment in the image below.

Place the microcontroller in such a way that the notch on its IC matches the notch on the PCB. Solder the notches in place as can be seen in the image below.

Now, solder the switch to the PCB board as can be seen in the image below.

The next step is putting the tilt sensor in place. Once in place, ensure that you solder the tilt sensor onto the PCB.

Next, solder the LEDs in place. It is important to note that the LEDs should be soldered before putting the battery holder in place. This is because putting the battery holder first will hamper the LED installation.

Now, put the battery holder in place and secure it to the PCB assembly.

With the tenth task out of the way, you are through with the soldering task. All that is left for you to do is install the screws and nuts that form the support structure for the enclosure. You can now install the enclosure and you are good to go.