Rather than practice soldering on a blank board, I thought I would build some kits. I chose this as my first, because it had a lot of points to solder, and because it was an LED display, something I am keen to connect to The Pinnochion at some point. I am interested in different ways of displaying info, so it seemed as good a pllace as any to start. This kit is the Velleman Rolling Message Kit. I bought the kit from Maplin in store, so I could look at things in real life, and see what I fancied a got at. I took it to Soslug for a bit of guidance.

I got on ok to start with. Ed Bye loaned me his soldering iron, and I got cracking but found it difficult to keep the solder end clean. Ed showed me how to clean the tips of modern soldering irons with tip cleaner/tinner, and went over how to remove solder and re-do clonky work.

After that, I was away and soldered the rest of the board. Once I was done, it all worked except one row of LEDs.

I took it to Soslug and Ray Eacott showed me how to check for faults. It turned out that one of the joints was loose. I resoldered all the suspect ones, and now it works well!

I bought this kit to practice soldering, but I would like to use it to learn a bit more about the components. I'll begin looking at all the parts in more detail.