Building The Electronics

'''This page has information from an early design. This page is kept for informational purposes but the information is no longer current. See Getting_Started for up to date information.'''

What is the custom board
The electronics needed, for which you can find the schematics and board layout on the GitHub repository, is basically a BeagleBone cape with an Arduino, some power management circuitry, and pins for attaching the ESC,servo and lights.

How to build the board
If you don't want to wait for the official board to be available, or you want to build it yourself anyway here are some pointers to get you started.

Note: all of the following are based on the latest version of the ArduSwimmer cape, which is available in the development branch of the GitHub repository: thing will change in the future, so be prepared to throw away everything you did: that's the cost of being pioneers and living on the edge

Tools

 * A fine-point soldering iron
 * You'll need some solder, too
 * A BeagleBone prototyping cape (three possibilities)
 * Adafruit Proto Cape Kit for Beagle Bone - the main prototyping area is a bit small, but with a bit of extensions everything should fit, but not 100% sure
 * BeagleBone Breadboard - has a bigger prototyping area
 * Buy a normal breadboard, cut it to size and attach some headers (do this only if you know what you are doing)

Components Bill of Materials
The list is not 100% complete and precise, but should be enough to get you started.
 * 3 Yellow LEDs
 * 1 Green LED
 * 3 Diodes 1N4004
 * 3 MOSFETS NChannel. The need to drive AUX outputs. Must have at least 12V rating and at least 1A rating. To play on the safe side, and to have easily accessible components, I think the N-Channel MOSFET 60V 30A from SparkFun might work.
 * 1 Transistor 2N2222A
 * 1 ATMega 328 - This chip comes in two versions. ATMega328 and ATMega328P.  The electronics utilize the chip to access the Arduino IDE.  The ATMega328P is the version needed to emulate an Arduiono.  You can buy the ATMEga328P chip from a number of locations.  If you do not have a AVR Programmer you will need to buy a chip that has already had a bootloader loaded.  The other option is to buy an AVR programmer.  Here is an example of a loaded chip.
 * 1 Voltage Regulator 317 SMD. Must output 5V (probably the Voltage Regulator - 5V from Sparkfun is a good idea)
 * 1 CRYSTAL 16Mhz
 * Resistors
 * 240 x 1
 * 330 x 4
 * 720 x 1
 * 1k x 1
 * 3K3 x 3
 * 10k x 1
 * 15k x 1
 * 20k x 3
 * 22k x 2
 * 33k x 1
 * Capacitors
 * 22pF x 2
 * .1uF x 2
 * 10uF x 1
 * 100uF x 1
 * 470uF x 1
 * 1 28 holes socket

Assembling
I recommend you start assembling on a solderless breaboard first, to make sure everything works, before porting it to the protoboard.

''The rest of the procedure is still in fieri... waiting for all components to arrive so I can start testing the assembly --Simonech (talk) 03:11, 26 July 2012 (PDT)''

Here is an annotaded image of a proto cape without the power circuit part (12V to 5V converters) with the components highlighted with corresponding to the list on this page:

--Codewithpassion (talk) 02:45, 19 August 2012 (PDT)

Detailed list of components
Here the list of all the components in the schematics and their values:
 * Leds
 * LED1 Green
 * LED2 Yellow
 * LED3 Yellow
 * LED4 Yellow
 * Resistors
 * R1 33k
 * R2 20k
 * R3 720
 * R4 240
 * R5 3K3
 * R6 10k
 * R7 1k
 * R8 330
 * R9 330
 * R10 330
 * R11 330
 * R12 3k3
 * R13 3k3
 * R14 22k
 * R15 15k
 * R16 20k
 * R17 22k
 * R18 20k
 * Capacitors
 * C1 22pF
 * C2 22pF
 * C3 470uF
 * C4 .1uF
 * C5 10uF
 * C6 100uF
 * C7 .1uF
 * MosFET
 * Q1 MOSFET - NCHANNELSMD
 * Q2 MOSFET - NCHANNELSMD
 * Q3 MOSFET - NCHANNELSMD
 * IC
 * IC1 ATMEGA 328
 * IC2 Voltage Regulator 317 SMD
 * Diodes
 * D1 1N4004
 * D2 1N4004
 * D3 1N4004
 * Transistors
 * T3 2N2222A
 * Crystals
 * Y1 CRYSTAL 16Mhz