SMD Happy Face by Velleman

The SMD happy Face is a great kit to practice soldering Surface Mounted Devices (components are mounted onto the surface of printed circuit board).  I soldered these components by tinning one pad with solder, with tweezers applying the component and reheating the solder to mount, lastly, soldering the other pad(s) to connect the component to the PCB. As one can see in the first picture SMD can be very small. The 2 Transistor and 2 LEDs are size SOT-23 (2.9 mm x 1.3 mm/1.75 mm x 1.3 mm). The 4 Resistor are size 2012 (2.0 mm x 1.25 mm). The 2 Capacitor are size 3225 (3.2 mm x 2.5 mm). These components create a Astable Multivibrator Circuit or Oscillator producing a square wave. This makes the LEDs blink on and off. Below the video are a few links that I used as reference and for more information about this fun technology.

Top to bottom Resistor, Capacitor, LED, and Transistor.

One side of the resistor soldered.

Tinned Resistor pad.

Tinning Transistor pads.

Assembled Happy Face.

Surface-mount technology Wiki

Radio Shack SMT/SMD Capacitor Tutorial

Transistor Multivibrator

Transistor package

SMD code book

Bulb Dial Clock by Evil Mad Scientist

The Bulbdial Clock kit was developed by Evil Mad Scientist based on a design concept by David Friedman. The Bulbdial Clock uses 72 LEDs to cast 3 shadows (hours, minutes, seconds) for telling time (indoor sun dial). This kit includes a pre-programmed ATmega328p microcontroller, 20 ppm quartz crystal, power supply, resistors, capacitors, gnomon spike, and mounting hardware. The 72 LEDs are driven using Charlieplexing. In addition to the Bulbdial Clock kit, I purchased a Chronodot to provide battery backup to the clock. The Chronodot is pre-assembled and easily fits into sockets on the Bulbdial blue PCB. This was a fun and simple DIY kit to assemble and the folks at Evil Mad Scientist provide very detail instructions. Below my pictures I will display more links for reference. This clock looks wonderful above my fireplace.

This PCB contains the bulk of components including a ATmega328p microcontroller.

Blue LEDs added to PCB for minute hand and Clock face with Gnomon spike.

Adjusting the LEDs for a Gnomon shadow for second hand. 

LEDs in green Circuit Board before soldering for the minute hand. 

Unmounted red Circuit Board. 

Mounted Red Circuit Board

Adjustment of the hour hand.

Chronodot.

Black case.

Clear case. 

David Friedman's concept

Bulbdial Wiki

On the design of the Bulbdial Clock