Martin | Sept. 25, 2017

Josh | Aug. 20, 2015

Nice board, good practice!

For MBI5030 PWM LED driver starter board - DIY kit

I am just starting out with surface mounting parts -- And this went really smoothly. The only problem I had was orientation of LED's. Support was prompt & helpful. I will buy more if another need/project comes up.

Response from madworm | Aug. 21, 2015

I have amended the documentation regarding LED orientation in the "source-code" repository on github (Docs subfolder).

Bernie | July 23, 2015

Difficult to solder but well worth the effort

For Tiny AVR-ISP pogo-pin programming adapter

As others have said, even though it is extremely difficult to solder all the pogo pins so they remain parallel and unbridged by solder, this is a fantastic little kit that is well worth its cost. My board designs are now much more compact.
I am waiting for my first batch of boards with the compact ICSP pad layout to be delivered from the fab house, but have all confidence that it will perform as required.
I have found that heatshrink tubing over the part of the "key" to which the pogo pins are soldered, not only help to avoid shorts when accessing the pads in tight areas and mechanically strengthen the joints, it also covers up my shoddy soldering!!

Response from madworm | July 23, 2015

Good you got it working <phew>!

If you happen to be on twitter, I'd like to see your modifications. There's always room for improvement.

Trevor | June 3, 2015

8 way LED indicators

For 8-bit LED indicator

The 8 way LED indicator parts arrived VERY WELL packed downunder in just 16 days. Soldering the 0805 SMD LEDs was easy with a soldering iron and fine tip along with the obligatory magnifier light for us over 55s. Soldering the 1206 sized network resistors was considerably more challenging, despite being larger than the LEDs they each have four connections per side. Not for the faint hearted!

My first smoke test revealed two bridged connections on one resistor pack and three on the other. Some judicious soldering iron poking and 2mm solder braid fixed the issue.

An extra four LEDs (I ordered four boards) were provided which was a nice touch, though I'd have preferred a spare network resistor instead (not something I have any of, though I have plenty of the more common SMD LEDs and in fact used a green LED in the second row instead of amber to make life easier).

The completed board is a very nice addition for checking microcontroller pins, especially after hand soldering 100 pin SMD PICs to breakout boards! Good quality product.

Response from madworm | June 5, 2015

Thank You for the detailed review!

Some time ago I chose to add extra LEDs, as I had destroyed a couple myself during the early stages of this little device. Interestingly none of the resistor networks died, no matter how much I abused them ;-)

Winchell | Sept. 26, 2014