Soldering Practice Kits

[NoddyPirate]

@SpyderTracks - This is for you. And also your fault entirely.....

I bought myself a new little soldering iron - cheap as chips - but with temperature control at least which I needed. I then sat down the other day and completely rearranged all my smaller DIY gear including all my soldering kit:

- and as a present and reward to myself for being so good and so organised, I bought myself a little soldering practice kit from Amazon to help me pass the time as lockdown continues over here. A little more than £10 for two complete sets including USB power lead and PCB and all components to make a little IC controlled flashing led setup.

The quality of the PCB was not expected I must say. It is quite heavy and feels very high quality. The component pads are immaculate. Veyr impressed I must say....

There are loads of different kits available for anyone who is inclined - clocks, radios, calculators - a good fun way to pass the time and with a little creation to be proud of at the end of it all!!!

 

[Martinr36]

@SpyderTracks - This is for you. And also your fault entirely.....

I bought myself a new little soldering iron - cheap as chips - but with temperature control at least which I needed. I then sat down the other day and completely rearranged all my smaller DIY gear including all my soldering kit:

View attachment 23800

- and as a present and reward to myself for being so good and so organised, I bought myself a little soldering practice kit from Amazon to help me pass the time as lockdown continues over here. A little more than £10 for two complete sets including USB power lead and PCB and all components to make a little IC controlled flashing led setup.

View attachment 23801

The quality of the PCB was not expected I must say. It is quite heavy and feels very high quality. The component pads are immaculate. Veyr impressed I must say....

View attachment 23802

There are loads of different kits available for anyone who is inclined - clocks, radios, calculators - a good fun way to pass the time and with a little creation to be proud of at the end of it all!!!

When i was a kid, I used to have a magazine i think it was called everyday electronics, and they used to have small projects that you used to make using veroboard

 

[SpyderTracks]

@SpyderTracks - This is for you. And also your fault entirely.....

I bought myself a new little soldering iron - cheap as chips - but with temperature control at least which I needed. I then sat down the other day and completely rearranged all my smaller DIY gear including all my soldering kit:

View attachment 23800

- and as a present and reward to myself for being so good and so organised, I bought myself a little soldering practice kit from Amazon to help me pass the time as lockdown continues over here. A little more than £10 for two complete sets including USB power lead and PCB and all components to make a little IC controlled flashing led setup.

View attachment 23801

The quality of the PCB was not expected I must say. It is quite heavy and feels very high quality. The component pads are immaculate. Veyr impressed I must say....

View attachment 23802

There are loads of different kits available for anyone who is inclined - clocks, radios, calculators - a good fun way to pass the time and with a little creation to be proud of at the end of it all!!!

That’s awesome!

If you want to mix some electronics stuff with computing, raspberry pi is awesome for some little soldering jobs and creating custom kit.

I’m looking at doing quite a high end DAC streamer for my Hifi with Spoti-Pi (Spotify connect) built in.

 

[Scott]

Since I was a teen I've modded consoles. I never leave them alone (well rarely). If you fancy some blood, sweat, lots of tears and a feeling of tremendous achievement..... do the HDMI mod on a WII.

It almost broke me. Most of that was down to the fact that I was using a standard iron to do the work. I didn't have any controlled gear at all and I melted as much of the PCB as I did the solder at times.

Amazingly though, I got through it. My eyes were killing me by the end of it.

 

[NoddyPirate]

When i was a kid, I used to have a magazine i think it was called everyday electronics, and they used to have small projects that you used to make using veroboard

Super!!

My Dad built a home kit Schober organ decades ago just like this one:

It sat in our sitting room and had the most wonderful sound helped by a beutiful Leslie cabinet. The electronics in that were something to behold. What seemed to me at the time like millions of components and miles of wiring.....

 

[NoddyPirate]

That’s awesome!

If you want to mix some electronics stuff with computing, raspberry pi is awesome for some little soldering jobs and creating custom kit.

I’m looking at doing quite a high end DAC streamer for my Hifi with Spoti-Pi (Spotify connect) built in.

Yeah - I'll be honest I am only really just discovering that whole realm and wondering if I can get the kids involved through that line. Arduino seems to be the latest fad thing too. Not sure how Arduino and Pi interact if at all....

 

[NoddyPirate]

Since I was a teen I've modded consoles. I never leave them alone (well rarely). If you fancy some blood, sweat, lots of tears and a feeling of tremendous achievement..... do the HDMI mod on a WII.

It almost broke me. Most of that was down to the fact that I was using a standard iron to do the work. I didn't have any controlled gear at all and I melted as much of the PCB as I did the solder at times.

Amazingly though, I got through it. My eyes were killing me by the end of it.

Love it!! Yes I am sure the gear in use can affect the difficulty level in untold ways!! I deliberately bought a temp controlled iron (well actually just a thermally balanced iron with a variable power control labelled as temperature control most likely), multiple tips including the tiny sharp point option and 0.6mm solder also. I don't think my old iron with it's big spade tip and 1.2mm solder would work so well on those little transistor pads!!

What's your collective choices when it comes to solder btw? Lead free or no?

 

[NoddyPirate]

174 solder joints later.....

With a little variable resistor that allows you to change the cycle speed too. A fun way to pass a few hours!

 

[SpyderTracks]

174 solder joints later.....

With a little variable resistor that allows you to change the cycle speed too. A fun way to pass a few hours!

Awesome! 😍

 

[NoddyPirate]

Awesome! 😍

Great little practice kit I must say. A good few spare LED's which was handy as I had the iron on one leg a bit too long and melted the resin cap - had to swap it out - thank God for solder wick!! The transistor connections are tiny also - a pointy iron tip and small diameter solder required!

Time to go look for some other kits too!

Have you played with the Rasberry Pi stuff much @SpyderTracks ?

 

[Bhuna50]

Oh dear - you've got two yellow and two reds together on that one row...

 

[SpyderTracks]

Have you played with the Rasberry Pi stuff much @SpyderTracks ?

No, haven't gotten around to it yet. I promised I'd buy a friend of mine's son a Pi setup because he's hooked on Minecraft and also wants to learn to code, and I thought showing him some real time Python coding that enabled you to modify Minecraft would really grasp his interest. So need to pick one up for him and build it into a keyboard. You can buy a ready made one but thought it would be a fun thing to start out on before I look into creating a streamer / DAC for my home hifi, which again I want to stick in a rather tasty aluminium heatsinked casing to help cool it and look suitably hifi-ish in design.

Just got to free up some time, working far too much at the moment.

 

[NoddyPirate]

Oh dear - you've got two yellow and two reds together on that one row...

Don't do that to me! I had to go check!!

 

[Martinr36]

Don't do that to me! I had to go check!!

You ween't the only one

 

[ubuysa]

174 solder joints later.....

With a little variable resistor that allows you to change the cycle speed too. A fun way to pass a few hours!

What does the back of the board look like? That's where all the solder work was done after all.......

 

[NoddyPirate]

What does the back of the board look like? That's where all the solder work was done after all.......

Pretty messy really @ubuysa !!! Took me a while to learn how to bend the legs of adjacent components to make room for the iron. A bit of burning on the horizontal row also where I had to remove a dead (murdered!) LED and replace it. By the time I got to the vertical row of LED's and the transistors and IC's I was getting into a nice rythm so they are a bit neater I think!

Looking forward to the second board now. That's why this is such a great kit - what you learn on the first board you can practice on the second!

 

[SpyderTracks]

View attachment 23876

Pretty messy really @ubuysa !!! Took me a while to learn how to bend the legs of adjacent components to make room for the iron. A bit of burning on the horizontal row also where I had to remove a dead (murdered!) LED and replace it. By the time I got to the vertical row of LED's and the transistors and IC's I was getting into a nice rythm so they are a bit neater I think!

Looking forward to the second board now. That's why this is such a great kit - what you learn on the first board you can practice on the second!

Very nice! 👍🏼