I bought this kit from eBay a few years ago as a tool for me to learn SMD soldering. But after that I never have enough time to solder and put this kit together, so I just make some time to put this kit together and make it run.
As usual, all package that came from China looks like this. We can’t comment about this as the shipping fees is free and the package is absolutely not damaged, but sometimes the IC pins are bended. Anyway, we can fix this problem and almost all kits that I have bought from China works fine, sometimes with some corrections, of course.
The components have been checked and it looks like everything is there for assembling. The SMD components supplied more that we needed for the project, in case we made some mistake or loosing the SMD components, we have spares for it.
The PCB looks very simple. It is a single layer PCB. WOW! All SMD components are in soldering side. There are several jumpers that we need to implement, don’t missed or forget that. It looks like the creator of this kit want to make this project a single layer pcb ? Looks hard to solder the SMD components but it is my tought to make this kit as a learning process of soldering the SMD components. So first, lets go solder the SMD part.
Before start soldering, I usually clean the PCB with alcohol. So I cleaned up both sides with alcohol and start with the SMD soldering. This time I just use the solder paste that I bought from China and heat it with my Hakko hot air, sometimes help with my soldering iron with special tips for SMD soldering.
Here is the board with the SMD parts soldered. Now it’s time to solder the remaining components.
Here is the complete board that have been washed. Looks good ! Let’s try it.
It came with an universal IR remote control. Easier to use with remote control rather than the tact switch on the PCB. There is no backup battery connected yet so everytime we power off the clock, it will reset.
My conclusion is, it is a nice kit for SMD practice but the clock is dim and the LED is also not light up nicely. Overall this kit is for soldering practice, not more than that ! I think….
