Built the device last night, added the firmware this morning. It's a fun project. While trying to check my end-fed random wire, I had a little accident:

Attached File


Good thing that happened after I uploaded the firmware. Now I have to unsolder all 24 of the leads to replace the arduino or rig some sort of surface-mounted soldered leads to put the USB somewhere else. Looks like my end-fed is beautiful for 40 at 1.17-1.20 and shit for 20 at 2.8 or so.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, and I even had mine mounted up in the case already. The soldering on the USB connector was so poor that it didn't damage the PWB traces at all. Luckily I have an SMT rework station so I was able to do a proper job of reattaching it. Now it is quite secure.

Remember, we build this thing out of cheap components, very cheap. When you get down to that price point, QA is entirely up to you!

Well said.

I had the connector start to lift on mine, but I caught it before it tore all the way off.

I laid it in a bed of epoxy, and that seemed to take care of it. 

Just my 2¢.

If I get a new Arduino. I'll epoxy it down. If I somehow rework it, I'll epoxy it down. My FIL is a retired EE who built a lot of homebrew audio equipment. I'll see if he has any tricks for reworking.

I know @SCWolverine sells the boards with diodes and such, but I missed the last set of orders so I got three boards fabricated and got five diodes from Ebay. I used a board and two diodes so I have leftovers. If he's amenable and I'm not stepping on toes, I'd gladly send a board and a pair of diodes to somebody to pay it forward. I'll send one board and one diode, too, but that's a lot less useful.

The boards have an odd screening - like they're double-printed. I built it by looking at the assembly instructions rather than the writing on the board.

There are no tricks to reworking it. Remove it entirely, clean the pads (solder wick), solder it back on either by hand or re-flow with hot air. Magnification helps Unless the traces or pads are lifted, then all bets are off.

Hot air stations are going for less than $70 (cheap Chinese hot air stations ). Given how everything we work on these days is SMT everyone really needs one on their bench. Lot's of good Youtube videos on how to do it.

yeah man send it on to someone, i only have 4 left this time

I looked at it under a magnifier with better light. The pads are lifted, so I'm gonna install a new arduino.

Excellent. I'll think of a way to get it to somebody who will get good use out of it.

You need a Hakko FR-300 desoldering gun.  I LOOOOVE mine!  Those 24 pins would be about three minutes!

It's one of those things I never thought I needed until I had some extra $$ burning a hole in my pocket and splurged.  Now I really don't know what I would do without it!

I have fixed so many big $$ display monitors that just had bad caps in the power supplies - it has easily paid for itself.

ETA:  I'm going to take mine apart and check the condition and epoxy the connector down even if it looks good.

I ended up using a pro mini after bricking a pro micro. 
Downside is that you need a usb - serial adapter to connect to the computer.
Goodnews is that using this one opens up some mounting options.

I'll see if I can borrow one.

14 left in stock, then No Mo. FWIW