I’ve successfully assembled my second soldering kit: The Velleman MK130 ‘3D’ Christmas Tree. It’s a set of blinking LEDs that sit atop a 9V battery… or you can add some long wires and hang it as a Christmas ornament.
At any rate, it was good practice for soldering, and the result is kinda cute. See my YouTube Video of the Kit for the whole experience.
Since I’ve been doing Arduino work, I’ve accumulated a few board and Shield kits that I need to put together. I haven’t soldered since college, so I decided to brush up on my rusty skills by buying one of those little electronics project kits: a Velleman MK102 Flashing LEDs kit.
The front of the board doesn’t look too bad; only a few parts pulled away from the board a bit:
The component side of my finished Velleman MK102 Flashing LEDs kit
The back is the real giveaway that I’m a newbie: most of the soldering looks pretty good, but I see a couple cold solder joints, a couple dirty solders, and one pair of soldered points that are a bit too close for comfort – fortunately they didn’t short out.
Solder side of my finished Velleman MK102 Flashing LEDs kit.
Not bad for a first effort, and on par with the handiwork on many cheap electronic gizmos you might buy. Next I’m planning to solder one of those little Flashing LED Christmas Trees, which has many more components. Then I think I’ll be ready to have a go at one of the Arduino board kits!
Et proiectus est talpa – "and the mole was cast out"