“It was a cool kit. The only draw back was that the little components weren't secured to the carboarad holder they were shipped in, so you have to careful not to turn the cardboard up side down some of the resisters tend to fall out of it. But this was very fun to work on and the radio sounds great!”
“Picked this up to start learning to solder. The instructions are very poorly written and are missing some detail. I recommend looking online for tips on soldering rather than the instructions for this kit. I had to buy this twice, my first kit never worked after setting it up and following all the steps, grabbed a second kit and halfway through putting it together, a piece broke so I am waiting on a replacement part from Elenco (who has good customer service, if you break or lose a part just e-mail them and they'll ship you a replacement.)Once kit I bought came with a soldering iron and the second kit didn't, so I don't know what is standard, but keep that in mind when you order. You'll also want to get a 9V battery to power the radio. You'll need some wire cutters to clean up excess leads, and maybe a solder sucker to fix mistakes. The amount of solder you get in the kit seems to be just enough to complete it, but if you make a ton of mistakes you may need some extra.”
“This is a great kit! The one SMD part was pre-installed so no unusual soldering skills or techniques were required to build it. There were no difficult mechanical steps. The technology is pretty interesting - this isn't an old fashioned radio. It uses an audio intermediate frequency with frequency compression and PLL demodulation. When you're done you have a useful FM radio that is surprising for its performance - its very sensitive and can pick out weak stations next to strong ones.”
“Two attempts at soldering. Each time, 1-2 of the solder contacts came right off. I am not a beginner when it comes to soldering. I would avoid this kit no matter your level of expertise. Terrible, 0 out of 10 quality.”
“Had a lot of fun putting it together, however the board itself appears to be of rather poor quality, a few days after soldering the foil began to separate from the board. while soldering i had a hard time also getting the solder to take to the contacts on the board itself as if it was coated like the rest of the board with a solder resistant coating. needless to say i'm having a devil of a time trying to troubleshoot the whole mess to find out how its now stopped working. The manual it came with was well written and easy to follow. the unit powered on when the manual asked for the first test so I knew it was working then. but it somehow stopped working after building the 2nd circuit. it may just be me being a novice with electronic building but i found it quite alarming while i started to troubleshoot the unit that the board just began to peel up and components beginning to unseat as i checked them.”
“First, I could not get this kit to work. I am not an electronics wiz, and thought I could learn a bit about FM radios and hone my skills with soldering. The manual that comes with this kit is very detailed and on the positive side, the instructions for placing the components onto the board was very clear, and the board is clearly labeled for component placement. The manual gives a technical overview of how FM radios work, but I could not follow nor learn very much about FM radios - but the tutorial is not for a beginner, they missed the mark. One part of the kit was surprisingly bad - the assembly includes a 9-volt battery holder that is attached to the rear of the board - and it stupidly does not fit. Someone got something very wrong here - it just screws over a portion of the board that has the ends of numerous components that have been soldered on.The assembly is basically soldering a large number of small components onto the board - about 36 different electrical components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, and even an 8-pin IC socket. That's well over 40 soldering connections, and somewhere I goofed and the unit did not work.It was too much work and too little fun - and nothing to show for my effort.”
