Well I did it. Built my LXR. Build impressions and a few questions.

str

I sat down with all the parts and tools ready to assemble at around 2 PM yesterday. With maybe a two hour break for dinner, I worked straight until the case was on. Didn't even notice it was snowing until an inch was on the ground. Powered up, plugged in and ate my victory candy at 3:30 this morning. Sweet, sweet bubblegum. 

This was my first electronics kit. I knew how to solder from repairing old receivers and tape decks but I had never dealt with components this small. Powering up the unit, hitting play and seeing the blinkenlights for the first time was a wonderful feeling. How did I not fuck this up? I still can't believe this entire project was designed by one person. 

The voltage regulator does seem to run warm. I was surprised the kit didn't call for applying thermal grease between the regulator and the heat-sink. Do you think heat dispersion would improve with a silicon compound? 

What's the best way to turn this thing off? Ripping the power brick out of the wall each time seems a little brutal. 

Julian, would you be up for adding some changes to the instructions? Some things I could contribute: 

• The guide really could use a disclaimer that some of the images used are from previous editions of the kit. I kept wondering if I was missing a bag of resistors. Also a disclaimer that certain parts might be different than pictured (red resistor networks for example). 
• A location map for the step 11 resistors (one of them was a hard find) 
• A color location map for the LEDs -- it's not immediately clear where all the LEDs go
• The case assembly instructions should specify that the nuts need to fit the plastic gaps a particular way to fasten properly. I was struggling to get the case square and kept exchanging sides and flipping the pieces and I eventually realized the nuts weren't fitting right. 

Other than that I was really satisfied with the assembly instructions. The Curious Inventor soldering guide was a great refresher. 

I could have used advice on a good way to solder the LEDs flat. I tried taping them down but wound up twisting the legs on the bottom of the board in opposite directions and still, some of the lights are a little crooked. What's the secret? 

Luckily it would be quite easy to change this for myself, but I can't tell the difference between the orange and yellow LEDs. I have mild red-green colorblindness so a suggestion for a future version would be to include more distinct LEDs for the grey beat markers. Also the voice LEDs fit too close to the switches. I had to angle the legs to accommodate -- it seems like there's enough room to move their mountings to the left. 

Still so much to learn about this machine. 

djversus01

great wrap up! and congrats!

One tip re: led's. What I found worked the best was to only solder in one of the led's legs in place for each led and then roughly bent them to line up before soldering the second leg for each. Still had to do a little adjustment after doing the second but it was much more manageable this way. Something to keep in mind for next time,

Best,

A

borfo

You can also roughly solder down one leg on each led to hold them in place, then melt that solder as you press each led tightly into place with your finger. It'll pop right into place... Then solder in the other leg.

Re powering down: You could wire in a switch if you wanted, but unplugging the lxr does exactly the same thing as an on-off switch would do...

Varthdader

I tend to like on-off switches.

When in a studio setup, sometimes it is hard to reach to unplug, and many times, the lead falls down and you have to fish it while on the floor...with an on off switch, you just leave everything neatly plugged and flip it.

str

You can also roughly solder down one leg on each led to hold them in place, then melt that solder as you press each led tightly into place with your finger. It'll pop right into place... Then solder in the other leg.

A-ha! That's the secret.

As for the power switch, it seems like a rocker would fit well on the case's right side panel. Can you do through-hole mounting on acrylic?

Is the case's design open source?