“Great project to do with kids.Some soldering might be delicate for a 8 year old, should be fine with an adult overseeing the whole project.Takes about 2-3 hours if you go slowly.Works great.”
“This kit has clear instructions. All parts are labeled very well. It has a nice book with pictures and explanation .I have no education and on top of many interruptions and a few breaks it took about 4hrs to complete. It can be done much faster. I like to take my time and enjoy building it. There are a few things that would be nice to have added .Stand or case of sorts .Maybe a digital channel. For 5 to 10 dollars you just can't beat it.”
“The Elenco kits are so-so in my opinion. They come with a great manual which explains how to assemble the kit and how each part functions. The last kit I purchased from their brand was the one button bandit which was OK although I felt that using the plastic box it comes in as a case for the circuit board was very cheap and didn't look nice. Unfortunately with this particular kit the solder pads are gigantic which some might think would make things easier for a beginner but in reality it simply pulls tons of heat from your iron and makes it harder to get the solder to flow and get a good join. With my normal soldering temps I was close to melting the IC socket before the solder would begin to stick to the pads. I raised the temperature of my soldering station (Hakko FX-888D) by 50 degrees above what I normally would use which helped but it was still not easy. I've purchased kits from other brands that were much easier to solder. Thankfully when I was done, the radio worked well. The finished product looks nice and the reception is good.”
“I had a lot of fun teaching some basic soldering skills to my 8 and 10 year olds. They loved it, however the circuit board really couldn’t handle and revisions, and while we were testing voltages, we found a short. When attempting to remove the component from the board to try again, the foils and pads pulled away from the circuit board. I was able to fix the area once, but then it happened a second, more catastrophic time. We had fun, but we’re disappointed for sure.”
“I can't praise this kit highly enough. First the quality in general is excellent. The circuit board is beautifully laid out and printed with the symbol of each component and instruction step number. The components are placed on a strip of paper labeled with the designation and step number. Back to the board, the component hole and surounding tin soldering area around it are relatively huge so bridges are hard to accidentally make and easy to desolder. The instructions are superb clearly written with numerous graphics. All these things make a ass assembly a great learning experience and a joy.”
