DIY Electronic Clock Kit, Soldering Practice DIY Timer Kit Digital Clock

At first the instructions seemed lacking. But the way the circuit board is labeled along with the instructions make it super easy. I have a modest level of experience with electronics and soldering and it wasn't difficult to understand the instructions. I think I spent about seven hours soldiering. But assembling the case was a challenge. Take your time and don't try to force the nuts into their slots, or you'll break the side piece like I did. Overall, a fun little project to work on my skills with a soldering iron.

The kit will certainly let you hone your soldering skills. There must be at least 160 locations requiring soldering! No much in directions provided other than the narrative. If you work orderly you should have no problem. I needed to watch a you tube video to determine which piece was the thermistor, then verified by process of elimination. I tested all the LED's as the instructions suggested and found they all worked. It was good a few spare LED's of each color were provided, just in case there is a failure down the road. Clock worked as advertised. But note I found assembly of the plastic case perhaps the most challenging part of the kit. Looking at the plastic pieces initially, except for the back panel, one would conclude they are all symmetrical, but alas, they are not. The front and back panels have a larger margin on one edge which I realized after a couple of false assemblies. Also, peeling the protective film off of the plastic pieces was difficult. With patience use you use your fingernail to lift a corner. Most of the film comes off relatively easy, but several of the film sections tore off in pieces.

This is a great project to improve your soldering skills. The operating instructions need to be improves but assembly was easy.

Nearly all aspects of this are great. The instructions are easy to follow. The PCB clearly identifies where things go and it works just as described. The down side is that the case doesn't fit and I think there was an error in the case parts sent because there should be side pieces that are tabbed and slotted but I only got 4 tabbed pieces and they did not interlock so while the clock is nice, the case just doesn't fit together.

There are other kits for sale using the exact same components and board, at least this one comes nicely packaged and includes the acrylic case and usable assembly instructions. The documents include QR links to more instructions and also back to DingDong's Amazon store but I can't find any way to actually contact the seller with questions. I'm guessing that many of the glowing reviews including the ones mentioning support are shills. After a few hours assembling it I am unable to set the clock in any way. Tried following the instructions and also any other way I could attempt. The best I could do was to change the numbers it displays but those numbers don't change with time. What's frustrating is that this clock-looking soldering practice kit includes all the same components that a real clock would require: a clock chipset with a crystal, an STC15W408AS microprocessor, all the inputs and outputs it needs, it even has a photoresistor to dim the display, a thermistor to tell the temperature. What's broken appears to be the firmware that's flashed on the 28-pin processor chip. My best guess is that the sellers are using a munged firmware image they don't know anything about. I don't even care about the 12 bucks but I had a specific application for this thing, a nerd update to an older clock case. And I want my three hours of assembly time back.

I’m disappointed there is no customer service support as clearly described in the product description. The price reflects the low quality and lack of any support

I am a retired/slightly disabled Master Automobile technician, I spend hours in my little workshop looking for things to do, I've taken apart and reassembled things for no reason. I found this kit from Dingdong Store and had to purchase it. I must admit it challenged me but that's why I bought it. If your looking for a little project to use your skills on, this was fun. I had one problem with a part of the kit (probably my own doing) but Jenny from the Dingdong Store made it right for me in two days. Thank you Jenny. My only tip would be, use a very fine tipped soldering iron and the plastic case front only go's on one way.

Excellent project. Very hard to put together. Not schematic, just guessing a lot of parts.