Looks like not all Arduino Unos are created the same - will my 3d party Uno work with DIY Gamer Kit?

Hi, my son has meticulously put together his DIY Gamer Kit but nothing happen (nary a flicker of light) when switched on. The battery is good. I’m suspicious that the Arduino Uno I got for it may be the problem — it doesn’t look exactly like the one that Pimoroni stocks (out of stock for a while now, hence the 3d party substitute).

Can’t see where to upload a photo however the most obvious difference is that our Uno lacks a largish rectangular black ‘box’ present on the Pimoroni Uno. Also ours lacks the name UNO printed on it ;)

Think this is could be the trouble?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Hmmmm actually I see we’ve got the UNO R3… looks like we needed the R2?

I’ve upgraded your forum account so that you can post pictures. Let’s take a look at this “Uno” :-)

Thanks!

Here it is…

One other variable… one the the header pins that came with our kit was missing, so we used the ones that came with this arduino. They were shorter than the DIY Kit ones, but seemed to be the same thickness.

That certainly is an Uno clone but obviously we can’t really tell if it functions identically. Could we also have a photo of the soldering on the DIY Gamer kit?

Sure, here are a couple of snaps. Let me know if you need close ups or other views

I think your battery clips are the wrong way round!

You mean positive is where negative should be? That’d be an easy fix… we’ll try it!

Fantastic, switched the battery clips and we now have lights! Blinking green light and steady red on arduino and red light on slow blink on the gamer. Troubleshooting says that means no games installed? So we’ve followed instructions for downloading games, but no change on the lights. We’ve turned power on and off… no change…

At this point you’ll need to contact Tech Will Save Us (https://www.techwillsaveus.com/) I think - they know the product much better than we do! :-)