It works! - Nay it disney!!!

The first soldering kit I have ever attempted, a little two dollar unit from the far off lands, I bought it a year ago, so I decided to hone my soldering "skills" for an hour, and it was an hour or more, and when all was done and dusted, the unit worked...

Keen eyes out there may notice there is a capacitor missing from the photo, more on that later.

I'm showing the best side, the soldered side is better left alone. When connected to five volts eight out of the ten LEDs did what they were supposed to do, react to sound via the onboard microphone, and two did not do anything. I saw it as a win, not a total win, but 90% success is what I call great for my first, nervous, time.

Later on in time, I noticed from the above photo that the top left pin of the circuit chip was not making contact, so 15 pins out of the 16 had good contact, this was the probable cause of the two LEDs not doing what they were supposed to, however, in between the two points in time, I screwed something else up, typical...

I was taking a look at the two LEDs that were not working, perhaps I had put them in backwards, a sound reason for LEDs not making light, but as I was checking, I cracked the smaller capacitor solder joints, and for the life of me, over the next fifteen minutes or so, I could not resolder them back, the minute tinned pads on the poor quality circuit board were gone.

I think that is a common problem with the circuit boards for these very cheap kits, but it is also a problem with people like me, who cannot solder for toffee, spending far too long with heat on the pads, basically removing any possible contact points, I will reset and learn, and order another one of these kits from distant lands.

So, it was (almost) working, and now it does not, probably a familiar tale over the next few attempts at learning to solder better. I have learned a lot from this first kit, eyesight could be better, dexterity too, patience can be improved and getting things right the first time would be a good idea.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.