Designing soldering tutorial kit

[Rachie5272]

I've been teaching people some beginner's soldering skills, and I want to have a more formal class.  For this I need to design a good kit, and I'd like some input on what people might find interesting.

I'm thinking an LED clock might be a nice project.  Blinking lights are always popular, but it also has a practical use, and would look good on a bookcase.  Does anyone else have suggestions?

I want to focus mostly on SMD, with a couple through hole parts for connectors.  I'll try to stick to larger size components like 1206 and SOIC, and encourage people who would normally shy away from anything without holes.  I'm contemplating having a sort of tiered construction with smaller components for extra functionality, which can be omitted if they're too difficult.  At the same time, I don't want anyone to feel like they can't complete the challenge.

[tooki]

The vocational school I’m interning at right now uses these kits as their intro to soldering, even for non-technical students: Geekcreit® Large Size Rainbow Color Digital Tube DS3231 Clock DIY Kit

IMHO they’re definitely on the challenging side for absolute first-timers (in particular, the MCU, which is a QFP), but doable, at least if you have the right soldering tips available. Perhaps solder the MCU for them. The most common fault is simple shorts between LEDs, which manifest as blue or green missing from a segment. Easy enough to correct.

Also, for a Chinese kit, it has very good instructions. It does have a few minor errors, so give it a careful review. (I can probably find out what the exact errors are if you need.)


We are also just starting on a project of our own, namely an electronic hourglass using addressable LEDs and an Atmega328p running Arduino code, with a soft latch power circuit inspired by the AVR transistor tester circuit’s.

[jeroen79]

It does have a few minor errors, so give it a careful review.

These would be a nice excuse to teach some rework as well.

[tooki]

It does have a few minor errors, so give it a careful review.

These would be a nice excuse to teach some rework as well.

Yeah, it’s just an incorrect resistor value or something.