The core of the assembly is the perma-proto breadboard. The build requires soldering two rows of female headers, a handful of wires, and the piezo buzzer to the proto board.
There is some flexibility in where to put the NeoPixels, piezo buzzer, and microphone on the proto board. You need to have all of the same pin connections listed below, but you do not have to wire them in the exact same breadboard rows.
As you assemble the device, double check the placement of the components before soldering. Ensure that the pins are connected where they are supposed to be, and that the physical components have enough room to fit next to each other. I made the mistake of putting the mic too close to the end of the Feather on my first attempt and had to try again with it further away to actually fit both components.
The first thing to solder are two rows of female header. One of them needs to be 4 pins shorter than the other to account for the offset keyed pins on the Feather.Â
I made my long header the full length of the breadboard. Making it one or two pins shorter on the far end, opposite from the Feather, would let the wire connecting the two GND rails fit better. On mine, it has to wrap around the ends of the header rows. Not terrible, but I'd make it a bit shorter on the next one. The Fritzing diagram image shows the shorter headers.
There should be 5 total rows of empty pins between the Feather header rows, 2 on one side of the center line and 3 on the other.
Make sure the headers are straight up and down, not angled. Use kapton or painters tape to secure them if you need. Solder 1 pin on each header row first and then flip over to examine the headers and ensure there is no tilt. It's much easier to correct any issues with only one joint soldered.
Prepare for the main assembly by soldering male header pins on the Feather S3 Reverse TFT, PDM mic, and NeoPixel stick.
Use the female headers soldered to the proto breadboard in the previous step to hold the Feather and its pins while you solder them. Work carefully, the solder joins are close the the TFT display. Be sure not to touch the hot iron to the TFT.
For the NeoPixel stick, use tape to hold the row of 4 header pins in place while you solder them.
Solder the wires for one component and test it using the minimal tests from the Individual Components sections, then move on to the next. Stopping to check each component as you complete the connections will make troubleshooting much easier if anything goes wrong.
Cut, and solder wires to make the following connections:
PDM Mic
- Feather GND to breadboard top black GND rail.
- Feather 3V to breadboard top red power rail.
- PDM mic 3V to top red 3V power rail.
- PDM mic GND to top black GND rail.
- Feather D5 to PDM mic DAT
- Feather D6 to PDM mic CLK
After these wires are soldered plug in the Feather and PDM mic to the header. Verify with the PDM test script that you can see sound level readings coming from the mic, they should get larger with louder sounds.
NeoPixels
- Top black GND rail to bottom black GND rail.
- Feather USB/5VÂ power pin to breadboard bottom red power rail.
- NeoPixel stick GND to bottom black GND rail.
- NeoPixel stick 5V to bottom red 5V rail.
- Feather D10 to NeoPixel stick DIN
After these wires are soldered, verify the connects work by using a NeoPixel test script with the pixels initialized using pin D10.
Piezo Buzzer
- Feather D9 to piezo buzzer active pin
The piezo's pins are interchangeable either one can be GND or active, so it doesn't matter which way round you put it. I made the legs tall enough to put the buzzer head slightly taller than the PDM mic when attached.
- Solder one leg to the top black GND rail.
- Solder the other leg to the row with the wire from Feather D9
Bend the buzzer legs underneath the protoboard after sticking them through the appropriate holes. Hold the proto board upside down with a helping hands, vise, or strategically stacked objects from your workbench. The bent legs prevent it from falling out due to gravity while soldering. Clip the excess leg parts after it is soldered.
Verify the connection is good with the buzzer test script.
At this point the protoboard should look similar to the following photo.
The haptic motor's small wires connect to the DRV2605 breakout output pins. Feed the wires up through the outside holes, loop around and put the stripped end back down into the inner hole. Solder on the bottom side of the inner holes.
- Haptic motor black to breakout GND (-)
- Haptic motor red to breakout active (+)
Stick the haptic motor to the back of the LIS3DH accelerometer. I used a small blob of sticky tack. The haptic motors come with adhesive on them under a peelable backing paper if you don't want to use tack.
The two breakouts get connected together with a small STEMMA QT cable.
The remaining components are all connected together with STEMMA QT cables. The chain of connected breakouts should go like this:
Feather -> BME280 -> VEML770 -> DRV2605 -> LIS3DH
With the breakouts all connected, loop them around and position the VEML7700 light sensor in front of the NeoPixel stick.
With everything assembled the kit should look like this.
Page last edited May 26, 2026
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