Tindie

Product shipped fast. Kits worked as described. Instructions easy to follow. I would buy from this seller again!

Lawrence | Feb. 14, 2021

Great Little Project

This is the best execution of a simple joule thief circuit that I've found. Easy to solder, includes battery clips (AA and AAA positions), on/off switch, the classic toroid coil with easy to work with color differentiated insulated wires and a nice 10mm diffused LED all arranged in a well thought out format. Takes 1.5V primaries down to 0.4 or 0.5 V.

Richard | Sept. 22, 2020

I hate this.

I breathed and blew away the 0201 LED. Twice. I hate this. May the person who invented it have eternally wet socks.

Response from MakersBox | Sept. 23, 2020

Hats off for trying. And for admitting failure. Send me a message through the product page and I'll send you a "third chance".

Vincent | Sept. 15, 2020

Cool!

For ArduStryfe MOSFET Board

Saves time in modding. I like that its compact and clean. Not too many companies have good customer service either and your company is fast and efficient.

Mark | Aug. 13, 2020

Thanks for teaching me how to SMT solder!

For I Can Surface Mount Solder

Great and fun experience, thanks!

100 character minimum............................................................................................

Daniel | June 17, 2020

Great joule thief circuit

I have a drawer full of half dead batteries that I keep around hoping to use. We are in hurricane season and will most likely lose power a few times. These circuits allow you to squeeze every last bit out of your used batteries. This circuit is particularly good at that. Thanks for a great product, quick shipping, and easy to follow instructions.

Robert | Feb. 24, 2020

It works and shines bright like a diamond :-)

I bought this kit about 4 years ago.
Just recently I found the box in my storage space and remembered I wanted to solder something ...

It is beginner friendly and easy to solder.

Response from MakersBox | Feb. 24, 2020

Love it. I often wonder how many of my kits actually get completed. I have a number of ones I bought from others with good intentions and then had my attention diverted else where. Thanks for the update!

Marie-Lynn | Feb. 14, 2020

Sweet kit! Can't wait to build it.

Testing kits to make info pages in French and suggest to our visitors at #BadgeLifeMuseum and solderingvillage.com.

Neil | Feb. 11, 2020

Great experience

Very responsive- answered my question right away Arrived quickly- he fills orders/ships each Saturday.

Greg | Feb. 8, 2020

Easy to put together. Looks great!

For Soldering Kit for Doctor Who Fans

My daughter is a big Doctor Who fan. I bought this a while back to put together for her. I followed the video on soldering it and had no trouble.
I should have bought me one.
It sounds like the audio and the LED dim to bright got reprogrammed so the light goes up as the sound goes up.
This is a little treasure.

George | Oct. 13, 2019

Fun Kit

This was a fun kit to build and show off. I ordered the option with some pre-programmed text as one of the modes. Everything works great. One thing that took a bit to figure out is that the spin direction matters for the text. You can spin either way for the symmetrical patterns, but if you want to read the speed, counter or custom text, the letters come out reversed when spun in the wrong direction. Thinking about the circuit's use of a hall sensor, this makes sense and was a good lesson in understanding the design.

Robert | June 8, 2019

Expletives not included!

You need 1. Kit, 2. Soldering Iron, 3. Flux, 4. Tweezers, 5. Solder, 6. Magnification, 7. Dictionary of Very Offensive Words.

Both the regular and misery editions successfully assembled. (Didn't even know there was an 01005 size until I got this kit!)

Actually, the hardest part is soldering on the pin so you can wear it as a badge! Spent some time faffing about with that.

Great kit!!!

William | May 27, 2019

Easy to build, works great.

For Leo Kit (Arduino-Compatible Leonardo Clone)

Good quality parts, excellent directions. Might be a little difficult for a first time soldering project, the battery clips are large which is harder to solder. Also winding a toroid transformer is of higher difficulty.

I like how this can be built for AA or AAA batteries. I have a lot of old AA batteries, so I did it for AA.

It worked the first time. The LED is really bright, I can see to not trip over the junk in my ham shack with it. I find is makes a nice light to put over my keyboard so I can read the keys at night. I just wedge it into the debris on my computer desk with the LED pointing at the keyboard.
The LED is still glowing when the battery is below 0.5 Volts. If I turn it off when the battery reads 0.44 Volts, then it won't turn back on immediately. If I let it sit for 5-10 minutes then the battery Voltage goes up a little and it starts again.

Landon | April 23, 2019

Fantastic Kit!

For DIY Ardu (Arduino-Compatible Clone)

Great piece of kit. Definitely a fun way to spend an hour or to teach someone to solder while giving them someone at the end for future projects!

James | March 15, 2019

Happy customer

I enjoyed putting this kit together and my new Arduino Leonardo Clone works great. I haven't detected any functional differences between this clone and an 'official' Leonardo from arduino.cc. The pictures of the product don't show a 2x3 pin ICSP programming connector but that was included. My kit was missing the USB connector so I contacted the vendor and he immediately took responsibility and sent me one. Great customer support!

The crystal and crystal load resistor (0603 package) where the most challenging parts for me to solder. I'm glad it wasn't too easy because now I'm proud of having assembled this myself. I used the SMD soldering tools and techniques I picked up from watching YouTube videos. I used a STK500 board to program the MEGA32u4 with the standard Leonardo bootloader that I found packaged with the Arduino IDE. Pin 1 on the ICSP connector is clearly marked with a small circle. I think this programming could have been done with any ICSP programmer, including another Arduino, but I already had the STK500.

Brian | Dec. 24, 2018

Great challenge fun.

Exactly as advertised. I chose the misery version. The ic chip has a pad directly beneath so i used a hot air gun on that one only. Messed up the 0603 led so I simply bridged the connection. The 0201 and 01005 I used my microscope. They supply a 2nd set 2nd chance on the smallest resistor and led.

Robert | Oct. 20, 2018

I never liked fidget spinners before.

Awesome. Easy assembly, super cool customization options, fun built-ins as well. Color me impressed. My friends are too.

Jan | Sept. 5, 2018

Awesome project, can only recommend

I did have some experience hand-soldering 0603 parts, so I said to myself: "This can't be _that_ difficult…"
Well, going to 0402 was a challenge, and soldering the 0201 parts was brutal.
But, much to my surprise, everything worked at the first try :) Didn't even need the "second change" parts!

For anyone interested in electronics and soldering I can only recommend accepting this challenge. You will learn, you will curse, and in the end you will experience the joy of having completed a seemingly impossible task.

Some good magnification, a steady hand, high quality tweezers and a fine tipped soldering iron are a must. A multimeter with a diode tester is also really helpful.

Seth | June 23, 2018

Works Great!

Bought this to program attiny84 chips for Ken's Geek Spinner project. I like the indicator lights. Works great. Thanks Ken!

Elias | June 15, 2018

Great Product

The Joule thief came on time. It was new-as advertised. I am very pleased with my order; and, I would definitely buy from this seller again.

Pierre | June 11, 2018

Really fun project to work on SMD soldering skills

Great kit, fun way to work on SMD soldering skills. I wound up having to order a few spare 0201 LED's from Digikey, but the part #'s were easy to find and everything worked after learning some new soldering techniques!

Pierre | June 11, 2018

Easy way to experiment with ATtiny programming

I bought this kit to experiment with ATtiny programming and it worked as advertised. Very easy to assemble the board and the instructions were clear to follow for programming as well.

Kirk | June 5, 2018

Great

Figit spinner was a quick project to put together and was fun to play with. TL;DR just junk to fill out the 100 characters required

Kirk | June 5, 2018

Robot is a great little project

For Open Source Turtle Robot Kit

Robot kit assembly was fairly easy and straight forward. Robot works as it should and is fun to do turtle graphics on paper rather than on screen.

Garth | May 7, 2018

Great product and fun to put together.

I'm still new to this hobby so it was fun to put together this YAPS. Works like a charm. Now it's time to learn something new - ATTiny85.

Steen | May 1, 2018

Great design and accurate customization with rapid shipment

Got two as gifts and had fun assembling with good youtube instructions. Will probably order again in a few months. Thanks!

Andrew | March 20, 2018

Challenging, yet fun

Having done very little SMD work, this kit provided some challenge, especially on the 0203 components.

It's a shame that 0102 LEDs aren't available, because that would complete the horror!

Jeffrey | March 4, 2018

Brilliant!

Easy to build, well documented, easy to use, works perfectly. Best of all, Made in Oregon. I wish everything Arduino was so simple.

Karl | Feb. 22, 2018

Great kit. Somewhere between challenge and torture :)

This is a must have kit in my opinion. I have done a fair amount of smd kit assembly 0603 is the smallest I have ever attempted. 0402 was OK but 0201 was torture .
Fun torture . Had to break open my 2nd kit for a 3rd 0203 led. (rather not discuss the first 2 ) And wouldn't you know it's on backwards :) I will most likely order some more to hand out :)

Letícia | Feb. 7, 2018

Excellent!

Great product! Assembly was easy and straightforward. Works perfectly in the first time. Good balance of spinner and good POV display as well.

Nick | Jan. 24, 2018

Excellent kit

This is a well thought out and designed kit at a very reasonable price. Easy to assemble with an incredible amount of documentation and resources!

Ben | Jan. 20, 2018

Escellent challenging kit!

This kit comes with all the parts you need, plus good documentation for a project of this level. My kit also had lapel pin hardware, which is great for attaching it to clothing after you've spent hours searching for 0201 parts that you accidentally breathed on and sent to Narnia. (I wonder if 0201 parts and the socks that get lost in the dryer all end up in the same place...)

I enjoyed assembling this kit. It's a good idea to order the spare parts kit if you haven't worked with very small SMD components before. Battery not included, so you'll need a fresh CR2032 battery. If the LEDs seem a little dim, and you've tried everything but the blue 0201 LED still doesn't work, try another battery or a regulated bench power supply. The first battery I tried was old stock, and it didn't have enough voltage to light the blue LED.

Be sure to join the 0201 Club when you get your kit working!

George | Dec. 30, 2017

Great little project

Easy to assemble, build instructions via Instructables very clear and easy to follow. Works nicely when done. I made a small change, put in a 14-pin socket for easy chip swapping, still heavy on the battery side, but that doesn’t affect its performance in any way I can tell.

Jason | Dec. 18, 2017

Fantastic Programmable POV Fidget Spinner Kit!