Gikfun Electronic LED Flashing Lights Soldering Practice Board PCB DIY Kit EK1874

The circuit design and board is really good, to the point I hardly needed to refer to the instructions, the solder pads are quite small so a fine tip is required, I did this in an evening but I'm too impatient to make it last, there's a LOT of soldering due to the amount of LED's, I found it easier doing 1 row at a time otherwise it gets messy.I had a bit of a game soldering the negative LED leg onto the tiny pad, I would advise adding some flux to make it easier but I managed without.In theory you don't need a multi-meter as the amount of resistors makes sense, though the odd single one was a little confusing, if you follow the instructions and fit the rest then there's only one place left for it to go which is: R1.It works a charm and the little potentiometer lets you vary the speed of the animation, the USB cable option made it easier than faffing around with 4 x AA batteries so I didn't solder the holder (I'm a poet!).The list of uses once it's finished:123Nope I can't think of one but it was really fun to put together and see it working.A great value kit with a ton of parts.

The media could not be loaded. Going to be building a guitar pedal soon so thought I'd do a quick refresher kit to get my eye in. Like a lot of these type of kits it's a pulsing light display driven by a 555 timer and Johnson decade counter, with a pot to trim for clock speed.Everything comes jumbled in one bag and there was some oxidation on the IC pins, but nothing that affected the final build. Had one faulty LED and another was cased the wrong way around, as confirmed with a multimeter.It's a tight fit, the LEDs are smaller than the usual 5mm fare, more like 3mm, and the pads are absolutely tiny; I've seen bigger 1206 pads. They also don't supply IC sockets which is a little cheap and means you need to be mindful of heating the chip when soldering.Overall it's a decent little kit, I just feel it didn't have to be quite so cramped, and sockets would have been useful for a raw beginner trying this.

This is a well put together kit with a good printed layout to work fromThe parts are listed at one side and properly noted on the photo reproductions of the printed circuit boardsThe circuit is relatively simple and as printed on the sheet very easy to followI should note that there must have been a change in the design as there were more LEDs than were actually required by the design

The media could not be loaded. I used the "Soldering Iron Kit, Tabiger 60W" added flux , cheapest multimeter and take your time . Remember the long leads go to the square pads and use thinnest tips , wasn't really that hard , the sucker came in handy when I soldered a couple of pads by accident .. Very rewarding when it works

I bought this to build on a live stream, and have been building many kits on stream for the last few weeks (and building kits as a hobby for many years).The PCB for this kit is excellent. Nice to work with, a decent size, and with the exception of one pair of pads that aren't quite lined up properly, a lovely layout. They've even taken care to orientate all the polarised components the same way, for ease of assembly, and they made all the anode pads square, leaving the cathode pads circular.Why only three stars then? The quality of the components included. Three of the LEDs burnt out (scorch marks etc inside) within the first few seconds of use. That was with a 4.5V DC supply attached (the battery pack takes 4 AAs for a total of 6V input, but I was running an external bench supply at 4.5V instead). The two spare LEDs I hadn't soldered in were DOA - I soldered them in and they never lit despite the rest of the ring lighting correctly. Swapped them out for a couple of spares from my bits box, and whilst they aren't matched in colour or intensity, they work perfectly fine.There were far more 'spare' red LEDs than yellow LEDs - surprising really as either you'd expect the correct amount, or you'd expect an equal number of spares for both. The packaging was also quite poor - the ICs had no protective foam packing or plastic tube around them, meaning the legs were bent and mangled on one of the ICs and needed straightening before I could even slot them into the board. A couple of DIL sockets for the ICs to slot into would also have been a nice touch, although not strictly necessary and that would have made them taller than the LEDs.The instructions were great. They told you everything you need to know, including which resistors go in which slots. The board had the 1K resistors marked (well, all except one - be careful you don't get caught out there).All in all a reasonable kit, but not without its problems.

Worked a treat, got me soldering componants nice and quickly in no time. The board is quite well laid out and has various parts that range from easy and tricky to solder in place. The final product looks nice enough, and runs off of the included USB power cable, although this is more for practice than the actual finished piece so its not exactly all that functional just a bunch of blinking lights that you can adjust the speed on.

Instructions difficult to understand and low resolution images do not help.

Fun product for beginners. Although I found one of the LEDs was reversed so check all items with a multimeter before soldering. Good working practice anyway!