Gikfun LED Chaser Soldering Practice Kit PCB Board 81 LEDs for STEM Electronics School Learning Project DIY EK1974

This was my first little project to help learn soldering. Easy instructions to follow, board quality and parts were great. I got everything working my first try and was a fun little experience. I definitely recommend giving this a try if you are new to soldering, gave me a good bit of practice and is also a cool little board to display when completed.

Picked one of these up as a soldering practice project and enjoyed it enough that I ended up getting a second one. Both builds went smoothly and worked right away once finished. It’s a nice mix of components and a good project if you’re trying to get more comfortable with soldering. The LED chaser effect looks really cool once everything is assembled. Fun little electronics kit and surprisingly satisfying when you power it up and see all the LEDs start running.

There are no surface mount components. Therefore it's very easy to build. When you are finished, it's really cool. Test the diodes beforehand. I like to cut the transistor leads at an angle before inserting. It's easier to insert the long lead first and the rest go in easier. Pay attention to the polarity of the diodes and electrolytic capacitors. Start with soldering the diodes in the middle rows and work your way outward. That way you don't get boxed in as you go. Inspect your soldering and reflow when needed.

I bought this to teach myself how to solder, and I bought it alongside a cheap starter kit that included an iron and some soldering wire. There a LOT of components on this thing, and probably a few hundred total solder joints, so I get plenty of practice in. I'd never done this before and didn't get any help, so I was worried that something wasn't going to work correctly when I tried to start it, but when I saw it come to life I was hyped! It's really cool to see the product of your work at the end.

1. Haven't figured out how to get the yellow illumination shown in pictures and videos, only red. 2. No instruction or part supplied for the wire support shown in the video for part J1. Had to provide it myself. Otherwise fairly straight forward. Beginners might need a basic idea of how to affix components on a board to be soldered on the reverse side without them falling off or moving. Just sayin'.

I'm a hobbyist electronics enthusiast. I treat electronics projects like lego sets, following instructions to build cool gadgets. This was a really fun, simple soldering project that I turned into a portable stim toy for my 9 year old son. The instructions are simple and easy to follow. The project does require some skill in soldering. I recommend a needle tip for your soldering iron to help get the tiny joints soldered neatly. With a project box, a lipo battery, a discharge/overcharge protection module, a boost converter and small amount of knowledge, you can convert this into a portable version. Out of the box, it just plugs into a standard USB block and works great like that.

Bought for Christmas present, didn’t realize how tiny it would be.

I’ve recently gotten the itch to learn how to solder. I started soldering coax connectors for ham radio and there was just something about the soldering part I really liked. This is probably the fifth soldering kit I’ve purchased from Amazon and it probably has more actual soldering joints than all the others combined. It’s not as practical or as usable as the calculator, fm radio, or clock but those always left me wanting more to solder but this kit finally satisfied that desired. I worked on it throughout the day and probably spent 2-3 hours total on it. TIP: If you want nice straight flush components, only solder one joint per component. Then, reheat the joint while pushing up on the component/led until it’s flush. Remove the soldering iron and hold in place for another two seconds before removing your finger. Have fun!

Good fun. Took me about 4 hours to complete. All components present with a few spares. Well made and easy instructions.

To preface my review: i've never spent a minute soldering anything before, so I was going into this completely blind outside of watching some tutorials on youtube. The instructions are well written and document every single individual component required to complete the project, and there was never a moment I felt confused or lost due to poorly made instructions. The pictures are pretty blurry, but they ensure to circle every solder point on the board and indicate what numbered component goes where so you don't end up putting a capacitor where it shouldn't go. It took approximately 6-7 hours across two days to complete with the right hardware in hand (heat proof soldering mat, soldering iron, flux core solder, fume sucker, solder sucker, and some copper to remove any accidental soldering plus a multimeter will be handy for testing components prior to soldering). Very fun and simple to do if you have an idea of what you're doing or have worked with small consumer electronics before, but I could see how someone with zero experience working with electronics would easily get lost. I managed to get it working on my first try, but had to replace an LED Diode as it was dead out of the box. I'd recommend this to anyone who wants to learn how to solder and has been working with repairing electronics or computers in the past, but maybe not someone entirely new. Beginners should start with practicing on wires!

Extensive soldering kit well laid out. My unit didn't fully function but it could have been my error in soldering.

First time soildering. This kit takes time to build but easy if you take your time. Works great.

I was a bit nervous at first since I’d previously bought an FM radio practice board from the same brand (GikFun) that arrived with damaged and mismatched parts. Thankfully, this experience was completely different. The kit was easy to assemble and took me less than two hours from start to finish. The instructions were clear, easy to read, and easy to follow. I noticed I even ended up with some spare LEDs and a spare Triode. While I understand it’s meant to be a practice board, soldering so many LEDs did get a bit repetitive. After about twenty of them, you’ve pretty much got the hang of it. I would’ve liked to see a few surface mount components included, as most modern PCBs use those rather than through-hole parts, and that’s what we’re more likely to encounter during real-world repairs. That said, I knew exactly what I was buying. My main goal was to practice soldering with lead-free solder, which is a bit trickier than leaded solder. It did the job perfectly, and now I’ve got a fun little gadget to tinker with. Totally worth the money, both for those who want to practice and learn, and for those who like to burn time with something a bit more complex than Lego.