Pile of gert parts arrived this morning

[gordonendersby]

This lot turned up on my doorstep this morning.


No wonder some people are baulking at the idea of putting all together.
There are a lot of bags of very small components to play with.
The pcb looks quite dense when youve got it in your hand.
Im glad Ive got a fine tip on my maplin solder station.
Looks like Ill have to put some serious time aside to solder this together.

Gordon

[alexeames]

If you're an experienced solderer, about 3 hours should see you right (as long as you don't ping too many incy wincy SMD parts off into the ether). I wouldn't want to do all that much close work in one go though. Enjoy

[exartemarte]

When I saw the topic heading I thought you might be building your own Gert...

I'd agree with alexeames's assessment. I did mine over two days; I didn't time myself (I don't need to - I'm retired), but three hours sounds about right.

[texy]

You don't have to solder all of it of course - just fit the bare minimum you need. You can always add more bits later. Depends what you want to do with it.

Texy

[gordonendersby]

Im going to put the lot together as a full prototype board then when I have something working get the parts I need and put it together on its own board. All the schematics are available so you can reproduce just what you need.

I can solder reasonably well and have a half decent iron and a ring lighted magnifying glass.
It will take me a bit longer to put together as I have ME/CFS.
I can only concentrate for so long before getting too tired and making silly mistakes, especially on fine work like this. But I keep plugging away till the jobs done.

Gordon

[alexeames]

Im going to put the lot together as a full prototype board then when I have something working get the parts I need and put it together on its own board. All the schematics are available so you can reproduce just what you need.

Yep - that's exactly the progression that it's naturally taken me in.
Step 1 do it on the Gertboard
Step 2 do it without the Gertboard
Step 3 make it permanent with a PCB

I'm still on step 3 with my temp sensors.

It's lots of fun. Hope you enjoy it.

[SN]

I did mine in two stints too - and I reckon 3-4 hours all in is what it took me

Magnifying Glass is the killer tool you need - after that it is actually straightforwards - do solder the SMT bits as shown in the helper video