Review on Master the Art of Soldering with VOGURTIME: Your Ultimate Electronics Learning and Practice Tool by Eric Williamson
Works great, fun little project for study or leisure
As a kid I tried to build a radio solder kit but after putting it together nothing came of it. Always wanted to finish what worked, but never had to. Now that I'm older and need to solder something here and there for repairs, I just wanted something to practice on. Being mechanically inclined but by no means a soldering expert, I found this project to be fairly easy. The instructions were mostly clear and easy to follow, but I also found a nice YouTube video of someone completing this kit, which made the color coding of the resistors a bit more understandable than the instructions explain. If there is one thing that I think could be improved, it is the labeling of the materials included. They give you product identification codes for all the included components, but the components themselves aren't explicitly labeled on the packaging, so you basically have to learn how to identify everything by their color coding or numbering. However, some parts are very small and it's not always easy to tell which color is which from the color coding. Also, the numbers on some parts are extremely small for identification purposes (my eyesight has changed). The instructions mention that you can email them for more detailed instructions, which I didn't try as I just wanted to start building and figure things out easily enough. Perhaps there is a more clearly labeled component guide? There are also photos of the finished product to use as a backup reference if the instructions don't make sense. However, the circuit board is very well laid out and labeled so it was easy to find each component once you figured out which component was which. Soldering was easy, nothing particularly difficult except maybe holding the adjustment knob assemblies in place. I would recommend having small clamps/clamps, maybe some tape or blue tape to hold the components in place while soldering as some of them don't have bendable legs to hold them in place. In general, I liked the montage, and I'm already looking for something more complex.
- With no plastic case and other complicated accessories, the whole radio kit is simple and easy to make, it's a set of very interesting and academic electronic kits. With reasonable design, the radio can stand stably on any flat place.
- Big and bulky
