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Adrian
100
Sep 24, 2013
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Any guesstimates on how complex this would be to assemble as a first time kit?
Sep 24, 2013
andy
1442
Sep 24, 2013
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AdrianHey @Adrian.
It's awesome that you are considering buying this kit. It's a lot of fun to build and there aren't any surprises since all the instructions are clear and very well presented. Here are the instructions as well as the tools needed to build it: http://learn.adafruit.com/ice-tube-clock-kit.
Just take your time and follow the instructions. You shouldn't have any problems. Here is an awesome tutorial on how to solder if you're not familiar:

Let me know if you have any questions.
Sep 24, 2013
Warlock983
146
Keyboard Club Member
Nov 3, 2013
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AdrianI have an official answer for you! I started this kit around noon today, I spent 30 mins or so practicing soldering resistors to a cheap practice board. When I was comfortable, I set up with the adafruit site up and went to town. It took me about 10 hours...I had some desoldering to do. There are some capacitors that are labeled in a way that makes you want to put them the wrong way. I suggest you read thoroughly and look hard at the pictures. Desoldering took about 2 hours (I messed up a few other things too). There are also a few steps that are kind of tough like pulling the leads for the tube through the tube board and bending the chip legs to get them to fit the socket made me pretty nervous.
I think it's a good first project because of the detailed instructions and pictures. Note that if you don't have anything (iron, solder, tweezers, proper DMM, vice, etc.), you will be spending about $250 on a basic setup and more if you want nicer stuff, so you might as well get some books to learn about electronics while your getting everything else.
One final note, you will want something like an optivisor, it helped a lot with making sure the weld pools were good. While the pictures make this clock look large, it's actually only about the size of a dollar bill and the numbers are about the size of a dime. Hopefully you will pick up a kit and start learning! Good luck!
Nov 3, 2013
vladsinger
2
Jan 6, 2014
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AdrianThe trickiest part for me was putting the really long leads of the tube through the PCB. *Do not* trim them too short before you get them all in, makes a somewhat tricky task basically impossible, you need a good deal of wire length to work with.
This is my first kit and with a little bit of previous soldering experience I'd estimate it took about an hour and a bit for the main board and at least another 45 min to deal with the tube. The instructions are very good.
Jan 6, 2014
andy
1442
Jan 6, 2014
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vladsingerThanks for sharing! I also found that inserting the tube leads into the PCB cumbersome, but that tip in the instructions by staggering the leads makes it much easier to insert:
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"Madworm suggests cutting the wires in an angle so as to make it easier to place them into the PCB, so you may want to try it!"
Jan 6, 2014
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