“The holes in the pcb are waaay bigger than the wires, making it nigh impossible to solder for a beginner. I had no trouble soldering another producer's kit, so it's just the hole size. It's like the solder disappears continuously into this great void and never fills it up.”
“Circuit board had such thin metal that soldering without lifting the pads was near impossible. Also, even after much rework on the board, the radio didn't pick up but one station.”
“Tout est fait pour ne pas se tromper.Tout est bien prévu, sauf qu'il faut d'abord traduire les textes en Français pour éviter les petites erreurs de montage.Il faut un petit fer à souder à bout très fin. Il fournissent l'étain, mais j'ai utilisé le mien (il contientun peu de Pb) car il fond plus rapidement. Il faut bien aérer avec un ventilo.Le plus difficile, c'est de régler les spires pour une meilleure réception. Il fonctionne fort et clair si les soudures sont réussies : bien inspecter chaque soudure en cas de bruit bizarre et si besoin titiller chaquecomposant.”
“The first radio kit arrived damaged I emailed the company and they sent another kit. This one arrived in perfect condition. The instructions are very detailed and easy to follow. I give 5 stars and recommend it to anyone wanting a small hobby to do at home”
“I ended up spending a few sessions to put this together and had to de-solder some stuff after I got the setup incorrectly. Still, for the cost, it's a good little test of your skills and it's kind of fun to show off.”
“Deciding to teach myself a new skill, I picked this up and one of Elenco's other kits (Elenco Practical Soldering Project Kit). This one arrived first so I started on this one first. In retrospect, it would have been better to start with the soldering practice kit. That said, as ugly as my soldering is, I did get it to work eventually :). Worked on it on and off for probably a month, had to clean up some solder bridges with solder wick. If you buy the soldering project kit, they provide extra wire and solder wick that you can use.I would recommend not *necessarily* following the instructions as they were laid out - in other words start with small components and work up to larger components, as it's easier to solder.I also had to pry open the battery holder a little bit to actually get the battery to fit using some big wire cutters, but that seems to be all that was needed.As for how well the explanation is for how it works - I couldn't say since I'm a novice butting against the limitations of my knowledge and potentially the limitations of their explanation. But I think looking at the instructions and googling things as necessary works fine, and I'm sure these are better instructions than most other places would provide.”
