Soldering Practice

While I have been reading and building a few things on my own, process is a little slow going due to time constraints.  It's probably going to be a little while before I have any boards in hand that are of my own design.  So to scratch my soldering itch I ordered some very cheap kits off eBay a little while ago.  No other motive in mind with these other than just a bit of fun putting them together.  There are kits available locally, but none of them are this cheap.  If they were things I might put to use I'd be happy to spend a little more, but as these will probably just got on my shelf of bits - the cheaper the better.  The first two were through hole clock kits, $5.60 and $7.70 respectively (including postage).   They actually arrived quite quickly.   Kit no. 1:

Both kits have a PDF with schematic and contraction details.  The PDF is not required for construction though thanks to the detail on the silk screen.  Kit no. 2:

Both kits are based on an Atmel AT89C2051, have a buzzer, various alarm/chime functions and buttons with a menu system for settings.  The second kit also has count down and stop watch functions.  No battery backup on either.  The first kit is 5V and comes with a USB power lead, the second is anywhere from 7V to 12V and comes with a short power lead with a plug on one end.

Both went together without issue and worked first go.  Not rocket science at all - but I still enjoyed building them both.

The other purchase I made was some SMD practice kits that were $1 each plus $0.99 postage.  I have done a little bit of SMD work now, but not a lot by any stretch.  I wanted to do a bit more SMD work and this seemed like the cheapest way to do it.  They are purely just practice boards with no function at all:

The quality of the board in these kits is not amazing - but its good enough to practice with.  I bought a few - but have only soldered one so far.  Good practice.