I love hearing personal experiences. Great to hear that you got the hang of SMT soldering. It took me a little while too, but now I prefer SMT over TH. It’s quicker and cleaner.

Sorry you lost too many resistors. I include some extra in my kits, but I will start adding more. 0603 size is so tiny it’s too easy to lose.

I’m also planning to design casing – actually thinking of casing Aurora in resin. I will post my result too.

Thanks again and happy making!

Aki

And it was so worth it. Not only was this a perfect project to learn some smt techniques, but the result was even more beautiful than I expected. I saw the unit in person at the fare, but somehow the lights feel even nicer when you assemble it yourself (as I did.)

I was up from 2:30am to 4am soldering the whole board. As a complete newcomer to smt (but experienced with through-hole), I would agree that once you have the hang of it then smt is somewhat faster than through-hole. I really felt I was in a groove when I got to the LEDs (the last components I soldered.)

My one hitch was that I lost too many of the 68ohm resistors, and ended up being one short (despite a vain 15 minutes of searching on the floor and picking up every scrap of dust.) I had to wait until the morning, when I soldered in place two 33.2ohm smt resistors from work.

When I get home, I’ll add sugru as strain relief for the power cable- which I have as a retractable mini-usb cable that I cut off the end. And maybe I can make some sort of STL file to encase the whole thing in a thin layer of translucent abs. I’ll update if that project succeeds.

Whoooh, all one breath. Sorry for the long message. I simply want to convey my appreciation and excitement.

I had such a blast at this Maker Faire!

Vary happy to meet you. Let me know if you have any questions about assembling Aurora 48.

Aki

Still, it was nice to meet you! I look forward to getting back home to my soldering iron, and soldering up the Aura 48. Thanks.