WTF am I doing with my life, watching you soldering a clock kit in real time? Your videos are strangely addictive and interesting. I can't stop watching, no matter what you're talking about or doing...
Nice assembly technique! I like how you manage to hold the board and the component in place in one hand along with the solder, and the iron in the other. I have to resort to a set of helping hands!
Me when I get a diy kit: *meticulously follows the directions and circuit diagram, suffering through any chinglish in order to be as exact as possible* Clive: "Let's just mash everything in where it makes sense to." I wish I was this good at electronics.
The only way to get good is to study, and build these kits, they teach you a lot. Also get an arduion or two and play with them. Examine the example codes and you can easily learn the short version of C and C+ that they run on. Get some ESP8266's as well to play with the internet of things, great fun and the lua code is very much like the Arduino codes, in fact now you can program the ESP with the Arduino programer with just a bit of work.
A company that sells wigs and random electronic components? What an oddly specific combination. By that logic, I could make millions selling cricket larvae and assorted pharmaceutical supplies.
bigclivedotcom The other problem I used to have was holding the component in place while the solder solidified. It was unbearably painful fir my poor sensitive teenage hands. I can now hold the components, but always use my beautiful Bernstein ball joint vice bit.ly/2hStUcB It's so great to use that I look for excuses!
about 17:30 in when you went looking for your pin aligning tool I was so hoping you would produce a hammer.. as always an informative way to kill some time
I just finished this kit and it works fine. Thanks for the video. I will study it to find out how to set the time and alarms. When I do my soldering I always use a small fan to blow the smoke from the hot flux away to one side, so I don't end up breathing too much of it. I'm using 3 penlight cells to power it with about 4.5 Volts, and that seems to be quite sufficient.
I got a rather nifty looking large digital desk clock in my office (we all did) It had date and timer on it too. Quite impressive I thought. I did notice that after a couple of months the date was losing days... when i cycled through the dates i found that 30 days hath September, April, June, November, January, March, May, July, August, October, December - except February which had 28 days.... Genius! Then the batteries all died one by one !
I had to.... bought three of these and put one together this morning - powered up first time - I'll be building the other two with my son. Much more educational than video games and with the exception of the solder fumes likely healthier too. Thanks again Clive!
Got the same one last year as a project for my 15yr old son. Although the crystal died after a week but once replaced it works fine. It is still running. Was so impressed I ordered their battery backed version at £2.10
Clive, chip pin alignment tool - table top and gently lean on the splayed pins until the alignment is achieveed. Been watching your vids for the past two days having found the mother-lode. The Postman is going to be busy end of this month with a cornucopia of bits that I didn't realise that I needed/craved until prompted by you. Keep up the good work. Ian
I bought a few of these kits (one for myself and several to give away) the christmas before last - finally got around to making mine and everything worked first go - miracle! Thanks for the tutorial Clive, I would never have worked out the chinglish "instructions"
lol I am building the same kit with you...it makes me smile....second attempt!!! I have built much more complex kits with no issues...lets see if round 2 works...love your videos clive!! P.S the drink tonight is Rum and coke :)
I love that lead/tin solder. It's what I learned on. By the way, here in "the land of the free" (USA), any product that contains lead based solder has to be handled as "hazardous waste" when you want to get rid of it. You see old TV sets abandoned along the road, because you can't just put them in the trash and even most thrift stores won't accept them as donations. I saw a TH-cam video where the cheapest way to dispose of them "legally" is to send them to China or third world countries. Many times they are just dumped on empty or swamp land, tossed in rivers, etc. The lead content of the soil and water is HUGE, but the few bucks that a USA "exporter" will pay goes a long way in an impoverished village.
Not sure if anyone else has said, but the caps across the crystal (calculated by C = 2CL - (CP + CI), where CP + CI can be estimated as 5pF) are the load capacitors and they cause/encourage the oscillation that makes a crystal do it's thing usefully. Wrong value caps, or no caps == no oscillation.
I got one of those after watching your video, never did get it working, so I contacted the seller who sent me another, that one worked great, I think the processor was nuked en-route as I did a great job of soldering.
20:57 - "...I really haven't a clue that this thing is..." Go ask the college kid that designed it for his electronics class project that this Chinese company ripped it off from...LOL
Clive, the cheapie IC sockets are easy to seat. Push them in, flick the opposite corner pins over, THEN solder the OPPOSITE corner pins. If it's seated correctly, then unfold or "unflick" the opposite corner pins and solder them.
Clive, I have just found for this kit the note "8-20 o\'clock chime can be turned off" which I assume means that unless turned off the chime operates only between 08:00 and 20:00.
When learning how to solder at college [C&G] was told not to melt the solder with iron but heat componets/ wire so that it melted the solder. the test to pass exam was to remove chips/ components and refit then it was tested to check it still worked.
>Hand etched PCBS Have you tried sending your PCBs to somewhere like Oshpark or DirtyPCBs to see what you get back? The quality for the price has been fantastic in my experience.
I recently started learning to solder myself by following Clive's advice and making some kits. My first was a super-cheap kit with just a couple of flashing LEDs. I killed an LED by overheating it with the soldering iron. Luckily, I had a spare, and the rest of it went off without hitch. The next was the very clock that I've just seen Clive put together. It works great, but I couldn't figure out the settings and it was too damn noisy, so it's resting at the back of a cupboard. Next was a transistor tester, although it actually does a lot more than that. It's quite a sophisticated device, and useful in future electronics work. I've got one more on order, and it's by far my most ambitious to date. An oscilloscope! :-)
you solder basically the same as i do. i bought 3 different clock kit from various sellers and found 1 half worked, 1 did absolutely nothing and 1 worked perfectly. the one that works gain about 1 second per week. luckily it is the clck that i hoped would work, it had time date temp alarm and 60 led in a circle that showed seconds in about 20 different various. patterns. sill worked perfectly after about 1 year. the other two so-called clocks are in some fill site somewhere. :) i can turn chime on/off and can even set chime between certain hours only and not at other times.
A habit I've gotten into is to cut the ends off the leads of R's and C's while they're still in the endcaps, because the sticky residue would otherwise scrape off in the holes and get in the way of soldering.
Tom Wilkinson I doubt it - just for giggles I built a "bomb" timer like in the movies and the uC made the silly "wheres that damn hero when we need him/her" chirping sound for each second the clock counted down. However in a lot of TV shows and movies I've seen the common garden variety kitchen timer with two rows of number buttons and a pair of control buttons made by micronta exhibit this behaviour and I actually have one in the kitchen. It has no beep function except when the time expires, so the each second chirp had to have been put into the film in post
just watching randomly through your videos and got here now. AFAIK the capacitors at the quarzoscillator are there to help it start up oscillating. only does not work if they are really off, but often even works without them, solely by copper line capacities...
The exception to carrying solder is when soldering SMD chips. Basically, ome fixes the chip in place with Bluetak, put lots of flux over one set of pins. Then carry a blob of solder over to the pins and run it along that side. With a little practice, all the pins will be soldered without any solder bridges between them. Shame the SMD soldering practice kits don't have more chips.
IT uses AT89s51/at89c51. as this 8051 variant has very weak pullup feature, hence it uses the shunting arrangement where the display segments are turned off by providing alternate patch thru the microcontroller.
@1FireyPheonix totally understandable. :) it's easy enough to mix them up because they contain what the Chinese call Han zi, and the Japanese call kanji (hear the similarity?) ---- warning TL;DR rant approaching --- they literally are the same characters often times with a similar or identical meaning. Hence numbers. The only thing that changed, just like had happened across mainland China for hundreds of years before, the sounds that fit to the characters changed. This is also why Japanese kanji have what's known as an On and Kun reading, giving two pronunciations for a character. One the original Chinese, and one the Japanese pronunciation. Both Simplified and Traditional Chinese use strictly Han zi and other symbols, whereas Japanese include the kanji, and 2 distinct syllabaries (like alphabets) call Hiragana, and katakana... These two extra sets of characters help Japanese text to stand apart from Chinese. It helps if you know both too I suppose lol :P
I've just received four of these kits as I'm experimenting with a "quick and dirty" way of powering up incandescent filament bulb displays via optoisolators in place of the LED display. The whole lot came wrapped in a very static-inducing sheet of packaging!
MegaWayneD One slight downside of a multiplexed display is that if it's not fast enough it may cause a slight beat frequency on your triacs that manifests itself as a slight flicker. But only time will tell.
MegaWayneD Definitely worth a try, and if you do make a matrix of opto-isolators you can always try it with different modules to see if you can find one with a faster scan rate. When I built a fairground game with large tungsten displays I used an M5450 LED driver since it is direct drive. I actually drove the triacs directly with the outputs.
That's worth knowing, thanks! The thing I'm working on is a bunch of car "festoon" bulbs arranged in the 7-segment way so it resembles RCA numitron filament displays.
The film over the display is placed onto the the acrylic front clear section before the display is assembled. Any film covered surface like dvd players TV's and even new mobile phones is placed on after assembly
I hope you will do your reviews on the new kits from radio shack,they have a line of kits for 19.99 .if you haven't already done them. A lot of us buy some of our kits ,from your review or how to videos. Thanks I still trying to find more of your review ,etc.
Speaking of countdown timers, I needed a few of those for my wife who has to take medication then wait for a certain time for it to take effect before she can open her eyes once more (eye drops for glaucoma) I looked around on Ebay and some Chinese shops bout could not find exactly what I wanted, but I did find a fellow who had the diagrams and code to build small ones using the smallest Arduinos and a little 4 digit display. So I built her one for morning and one for evening (different times required) and one for our car as I pull her behind our RV when traveling and I need to run the engine for 5 minutes at each stop to keep the transmission lubricated. They are quite simple to build and run great on 9 volt batteries.
Hi Clive, After watching this video, I went out and got this kit to solder as my first practice. It was great following along! Is it bad that I am learning to solder "Clive-style" holding the solder and PCB in one hand?
It would be a really neat project to cover the clock to large display made from discrete "straw hat" LEDs. One of your older videos had some really nice prototype panels.
Amazing video as always! Just wondering, you've inspired me to start soldering! Just wondering if you can recommend a half decent sdering iron to choose for a beginner, but one I will feel happy soldering with as I get better! Many thanks and keep up the good work!
Justin Parker A good general purpose iron that will serve you well will be an Antex XS. You can probably get one from Maplin, but I'd recommend using lead based solder which Maplin don't seem to sell. If you can get the iron along with a suitable stand that's even better.
Love the 50 herz hum! I love that sound, all i hear in my "Lab" are ear-busting high-frequency noisesfrom switch mode supplies... :( Thats the one thing im looking forward to aging, so i dont hear it anymore! XD
Thanks Clive, I built this yesterday but did not know how to set the time, now thanks to you its done :) :ps, my wife shouted through to me ( whats that annoying noise).. so I have de-soldered the buzzer, we are both happy now :)
+Ron Thompson My wife threw the circuit board away by mistake, it was in a small brown jiffy bag, she didn't look inside and thought it was rubbish :( I have had to order a new one :)
Oh dear I recently took apart my old broken Commodore 64 and in the troubleshooting process I cleaned all the IC pins with sandpaper, I don't know if I got lucky but that didn't kill it with static after I swapped out the bad video chip
It's unfortunate but I was sold some quite rare vintage sound chips embedded in what only LOOKED like dissipative foam, Without a proper static shield bag too. Most of the cheap bits I get come incorrectly packaged. If you need to build something you might come to rely upon I'd suggest other sources. I still love cheap eBay deals though. They keep my hobbies going.
...Back in the1970's...Digi-key sold stuff like this....but you had to make your own CB from the parts in the kit and it used a 3 resistor voltage divider across the120 line for low voltage power....red LEDS 7-seg...then later a kit with vac-fluor tubes....
those little buzzers that seem to be everywhere are actually very simple electromechanical bells with the metal diaphragm also switching the coil.... I took one apart to see why I couldn't get one to sing.
I bought 3 of the other clock you built. I built one, and never got it to work. Checked polarity, checked solder joints, etc. Still didn't work. Figured the controller was cooked by the static in the foam.
Ah eBay sellers and packing. Personal favourite: One of those plastic shipping bags 5% full of chips in individual polythene bags, and a bit of packing foam thrown on top for luck. Many bent/missing pins, much static, so wow.
spoonymccheese or fragile magnetics wrapped in bubble wrap tossed into a plastic shipping bag, not once but twice. Both cores ended up arriving in not so useful little bits instead of two useful halves!
Interesting way of driving the segments. Maybe the MCU can not source enough current to drive the segments directly, but can sink the current to shunt them out?
When I first watched this, I was wondering, "Why did they bother to include a socket for the IC instead of just putting it directly on the board?" Then I watched Clive solder the thing going right down the rows. That's when the light bulb went on, "Oh, so an inexperienced amateur won't cook the chip while soldering it in place." I'm going to assume, Clive, that you did it this way because you knew you were just soldering the socket, not the actual chip. When my dad taught me to solder, he was adamant about that concept: *Never* solder adjacent pins on an IC one right after another. *Always* solder diagonally opposite pins and, even then, it's a good idea to allow a few seconds cooling time after soldering each pin. When possible, keep a finger flat against the top of the chip while you're working. If it gets too hot to keep your finger on it, it's time to stop and let it cool before proceeding. You might consider adding a caption to your video to point this out. :)
+Greg Wolking On the rare occasion I solder a chip in directly I stagger the soldering on opposing pins and also pause mid soldering to let the chip cool down. A socket is always preferred.
+bigclivedotcom I had figured as much, Clive, as I stated previously. It's quite clear from your videos that you really know your stuff. Thank you, sir, for taking the time to answer my inquiry. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. In particular, I find the calm, measured, "thinking out loud" style of your narration to be a refreshing change from many other "how-to" TH-camrs who seem to think they must become some kind of "character" telling jokes, cracking wise, getting ridiculously upset, and so on. I have often wondered whether you plan what you intend to cover before you start recording or just go completely off-the-cuff every time. If the latter, it _sounds_ like the former, as you're very good at staying on point and not needlessly repeating yourself (AvE comes immediately to mind in that regard). You may count me as a fan, sir, and I applaud your endeavors!
Total novice here, I had actually ordered two of these so I could bugger up one of them and perhaps make the second one work. The first one didn't work due to my dodgy soldering and that night I saw this video, so today I attempted my second one and finally managed to produce something that doesn't look like a hedgehog and actually works. I think I might change the power supply widget though as I wanted to be able to plug it into a usb connection and so far it goes into a bread board and then into a USB connection which isn't ideal. Clive just sails through these videos, with double joints and a skill that makes my attempts look like a five year old poking things with a big stick. One day.... ;)
Kits like these are perfect for practising soldering though and are cheap! You could use a micro usb breakout board like this www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Female-MICRO-USB-to-DIP-5-Pin-Breakout-board-UK-STOCK-/252737357565?hash=item3ad85206fd:g:ZRAAAOSwjDZYgx05 for your USB connection!
Big Clive ,do u think a weller 40 watt soldering pen is to much,and what soldering pen do you use,I am sure you got good reason to use that pen with all the work you do.with it. A lot of pens tell you the temps.they run at that weller I am looking at is 900 degrees which seems a lot .my last two soldering pens were 30 watt pens.i have been soldering for over forty years and I been away from it for a while things change.
+Ron Thompson 40 watt seems quite high, except for soldering big connections. Nothing too much has changed in soldering, but try and avoid the lead-free solder.
I have used hundreds microcontrollers as rudely as you want and never had a single failure attributable to static. The inputs are protected. The earliest CMOS chips were not, so the lore has spread and still sticks..
Built a couple of those clock kits. The one like yours worked till I inadvertently hooked it up to my 12 volt power bank instead of the 5. The other had soldering iron problems. You see, I spend most of my time in a lift recliner because of my body condition, at any rate, I thought it would be a smart idea to buy one of those little cheap USB soldering irons. They do work GREAT for just tinning a lead or something but building a kit? Not so much. Seems they just keep heating up and suddenly the traces and pads are seperating and your kit is pretty much garbage. Ruined four or five different kits with that before it became a little used item. I finally bought a cheap mains type with thermostat on the handle taking the tips like the ones you use. It does a nice job if you are careful but I have yet to buy any more kits. I do have decor that I built up such as little Christmas trees and heart we put on the dash of our Motor Home while traveling and when we spend the winter months in Arizona to keep away from the dreaded snow of North and South Dakota.
Who the hell knows, some days I just ramble on, and on and on. I once considered myself a writer, even had a few short stories published, one in a magazine, another in a sci-fi anthology, but I gave it up and turned to computers, then to arduinos, then oh well you get the picture, hell I have been a soldier, a cop, a clerk to a district judge, and a carpenter. I have been a wood worker, a painter and a few other things I shan't go into, but the young in our family remember me the most as that uncle who tells the best ghost stories ever.
Big Clive ,I just finished my clock kit ,I followed your video step by step,it seems to work except my buzzer ,I thought I might have reverse it,no it's just like yours,any idea ,I check to make sure no solder touch other pins,also ,I am looking for another soldering pen,my weller is 30 or more years old,what brand is your and where did you buy it.and how many watts. What is our time difference ,I am in California.also thanks for all your help.and your videos are the best.
+Ron Thompson Check the circuit path to the buzzer for solder bridges or dry joints. That includes from the processor pin via the resistor to the transistor and the beeper itself. Also make sure the transistor is in the right way round.
I bought one of these as im trying to get into electronic projects and teach myself soldering. Amazingly I have it running! I want to power it off of battery and have put three AA batteries together (4.6V) but it's draining them in a matter of hours. I KNOW NOTHING about electronics so wondered if you might know why? (I am assuming it has to do with draw and amps etc) ... also if you have any ideas about what batteries would be required to keep it battery powered if possible that would be great!
Thanks for the quick and useful response! I bought it to practice soldering so its not the end of the world that it doesn't with a battery because of the current draw... so know I know that current is key to how long a battery will last :) THE MORE YOU KNOW!
Loved the video. I solder the same way you do also. Have you noticed the Chinese kits have finer than normal wires on their resistor and capacitor leads?
Could you measure the power draw of this kit? I would like to power it from a AA battery with the help of a little step up converter. Would this be possible? Btw, love your ASMR videos, got me into soldering. Greetings from Germany!
Regarding "rising clamp terminals" - do they have another name? I just looked on eBay to get some (I'd not heard of them before - I've only used those crappy terminals you got in your kit), and there are a few, but really not many and every single one of them was from Maplin. Where are the Chinese cheapies?? So I'm wondering if they have another name I should search for? "screw terminal" just seems to find the basic cheap ones that you got here in your kit.
+TheBloke The rising clamp terminals are not cheap, so I don't see them much on eBay. They might not even describe them as rising clamp even if they were. The word "cage" is sometimes used, but that's still no guarantee of getting the better terminals.
+bigclivedotcom Awesome, thanks for the fast reply Clive! The Maplin ones are not unaffordable, at least when used sparingly for specific jobs, so I guess I'll just get a few of those. Actually rather than using eBay maybe I can find them in my local store, because they charge £2 for shipping which doubles the price in some cases. But I'll have a look for "cage" terminals as well before I buy. Thanks again!
And, if this is demonetized, we could all benefit from a periodic Mission Impossible theme music! And you could play it from an ‘80’s style 8-bit music generator, sold as a kit on eBay!
They're better now, but in the past technical and scientific channels would get videos demonetised fairly regularly. Usually when non technical people reported them as looking dangerous.
WTF am I doing with my life, watching you soldering a clock kit in real time? Your videos are strangely addictive and interesting. I can't stop watching, no matter what you're talking about or doing...
youtubkeeper Same idk either why am i watching this
where has the *time* gone
same here, i think it has to do with how expresses himself and relate what he is doing.
He would have been an outstanding high school electronics teacher!!!
Utube us full of these. Auto repair, small engines... it is always therapeutic to watch someone else work. Puts me to sleep. ;-)
Those parts are protected from ESD using the Shenzhen Damp Air technique. The air in the bag is humid enough to have a dissipative effect. ;)
+Godfrey Poon lol
Lol 😂
You sir are the Bob Ross of soldering. Please put more kit-building vids up. ;]=
XombyCraft Couldn't have said better myself. A soothing voice, technical knowledge and a good sense of humor. Can't get much better than that.
He’s not the bob Ross of soldering .He’s more a Da Vinci Highly intelligent and amusing. Bob Ross sooooooooo boring
"Soldering kits are quite therapeutic" - I totally agree
Nice assembly technique! I like how you manage to hold the board and the component in place in one hand along with the solder, and the iron in the other. I have to resort to a set of helping hands!
Me when I get a diy kit: *meticulously follows the directions and circuit diagram, suffering through any chinglish in order to be as exact as possible*
Clive: "Let's just mash everything in where it makes sense to."
I wish I was this good at electronics.
+Chris Roller You're already on your way to that point. Time to treat yourself to some random Chinese ebay kits.
The only way to get good is to study, and build these kits, they teach you a lot. Also get an arduion or two and play with them. Examine the example codes and you can easily learn the short version of C and C+ that they run on. Get some ESP8266's as well to play with the internet of things, great fun and the lua code is very much like the Arduino codes, in fact now you can program the ESP with the Arduino programer with just a bit of work.
Who needs a helping hand? Clive, that is next level soldering, holding the board and the solder in same hand....my hat is doffed to you sir.
I have never been so amazed by a video that shows how to complete such a simple kit! Keep making these videos!!!
"uh oh it looks strongly chineseish" BAHAHAHA
+Oriole Advent i lost it at this point lol
A company that sells wigs and random electronic components? What an oddly specific combination.
By that logic, I could make millions selling cricket larvae and assorted pharmaceutical supplies.
Nah fam making Saab hubcaps and flower seeds is where it's at.
I imagine they live close to both manufacturers
.... i cant mount components straight even with a pair of helping hands and clive can do everything with his left hand.
So much road ahead
Don't worry, the more you do it the easier it gets.
bigclivedotcom
The other problem I used to have was holding the component in place while the solder solidified. It was unbearably painful fir my poor sensitive teenage hands. I can now hold the components, but always use my beautiful Bernstein ball joint vice bit.ly/2hStUcB It's so great to use that I look for excuses!
"and Clive can do everything with his left hand."
Don't tell his wife that. 😀
@@BedsitBob Not _really_ a worry...
about 17:30 in when you went looking for your pin aligning tool I was so hoping you would produce a hammer.. as always an informative way to kill some time
I just finished this kit and it works fine. Thanks for the video. I will study it to find out how to set the time and alarms. When I do my soldering I always use a small fan to blow the smoke from the hot flux away to one side, so I don't end up breathing too much of it. I'm using 3 penlight cells to power it with about 4.5 Volts, and that seems to be quite sufficient.
I got a rather nifty looking large digital desk clock in my office (we all did) It had date and timer on it too. Quite impressive I thought. I did notice that after a couple of months the date was losing days... when i cycled through the dates i found that 30 days hath September, April, June, November, January, March, May, July, August, October, December - except February which had 28 days.... Genius!
Then the batteries all died one by one !
I had to.... bought three of these and put one together this morning - powered up first time - I'll be building the other two with my son. Much more educational than video games and with the exception of the solder fumes likely healthier too. Thanks again Clive!
Scott Warmbier there's nothing wrong with video games you middle aged old sack
Guilty as charged DerpBomb Gaming... All kidding aside he gets a lot from games like Mine Craft and Tereria...
Got the same one last year as a project for my 15yr old son.
Although the crystal died after a week but once replaced it works fine.
It is still running.
Was so impressed I ordered their battery backed version at £2.10
Clive, chip pin alignment tool - table top and gently lean on the splayed pins until the alignment is achieveed.
Been watching your vids for the past two days having found the mother-lode. The Postman is going to be busy end of this month with a cornucopia of bits that I didn't realise that I needed/craved until prompted by you. Keep up the good work.
Ian
+0PAIx I've got a proper "hand exerciser" type pin aligner, but it was hiding when I made the video. Yeah, the postman is here almost every day.
Have been giving soldering workshops all day today.
And agree with everything you said . . and so should my students ;)
I cant stop watching your videos! You make me want to learn about everything!!! You are a true genious sir!
I bought a few of these kits (one for myself and several to give away) the christmas before last - finally got around to making mine and everything worked first go - miracle! Thanks for the tutorial Clive, I would never have worked out the chinglish "instructions"
Big Clive the Bob Ross of Electronics :D could watch your videos all day!
Really appreciate all the good tips on soldering, very helpful indeed.
Love watching your video's very therapeutic. Best wishes from Hamilton.
8'55" solder the middle lead of the transistor then check it's square - what a brilliant idea. Thank you Bigclive.
lol I am building the same kit with you...it makes me smile....second attempt!!! I have built much more complex kits with no issues...lets see if round 2 works...love your videos clive!! P.S the drink tonight is Rum and coke :)
I just put one of these together and was about to give up on figuring out how to set it when i found your video. Thank you for the help.
Quite funny that they used 8 for B and 0 for D where they could have used b and d respectively.
That's what I thought too when I saw it.
The 30pf capacitors are in series with the xtal; they provide the correct load for the xtal and the necessary phase shift to make the oscillator work.
Not exactly. I was told by an engineer some years ago that those were added to ensure that the oscillator would start reliably.
Looks like a bomb...
Only in Texas.
+Bright Spark I think you owe Clive $15m now
+bigclivedotcom this comment wins everything. Edit: Your reply, not spark's comment.
imagine, replacing buzzer with relay and detonator...(thus making sound signal trigger bomb....).then accidently shorting a button...and going kablewi
totally impractical for a bomb
Hello clive enjoy your tardown vids,particularly like the way that you hold the boards and solder in one hand,no need for a helping hands clamp.
john hill I'm still trying to get that technic down too . .
Requires lots of practice though :)
Great Video Clive Very Random But Cool Kit. Keep up the great work. Nick.
I love that lead/tin solder. It's what I learned on. By the way, here in "the land of the free" (USA), any product that contains lead based solder has to be handled as "hazardous waste" when you want to get rid of it. You see old TV sets abandoned along the road, because you can't just put them in the trash and even most thrift stores won't accept them as donations.
I saw a TH-cam video where the cheapest way to dispose of them "legally" is to send them to China or third world countries. Many times they are just dumped on empty or swamp land, tossed in rivers, etc. The lead content of the soil and water is HUGE, but the few bucks that a USA "exporter" will pay goes a long way in an impoverished village.
That's why I only buy my solder from China, where I can get the lead/tin combo that works! Tried some of that leadless crap, never liked the results.
i buy a 60 tin 40 lead from the hardware store for use
You mean REAL solder!
Not sure if anyone else has said, but the caps across the crystal (calculated by C = 2CL - (CP + CI), where CP + CI can be estimated as 5pF) are the load capacitors and they cause/encourage the oscillation that makes a crystal do it's thing usefully. Wrong value caps, or no caps == no oscillation.
Thanks bigclive i have just bought this kit and i think you have saved me a lot of time with the set routine.
Love the smell of melting solder in the morning :-)
Real solder with lead and tin.
And flux in the core, don forget the flux
I got one of those after watching your video, never did get it working, so I contacted the seller who sent me another, that one worked great, I think the processor was nuked en-route as I did a great job of soldering.
20:57 - "...I really haven't a clue that this thing is..." Go ask the college kid that designed it for his electronics class project that this Chinese company ripped it off from...LOL
Clive, the cheapie IC sockets are easy to seat. Push them in, flick the opposite corner pins over, THEN solder the OPPOSITE corner pins. If it's seated correctly, then unfold or "unflick" the opposite corner pins and solder them.
Clive, I have just found for this kit the note "8-20 o\'clock chime can be turned off" which I assume means that unless turned off the chime operates only between 08:00 and 20:00.
When learning how to solder at college [C&G] was told not to melt the solder with iron but heat componets/ wire so that it melted the solder. the test to pass exam was to remove chips/ components and refit then it was tested to check it still worked.
>Hand etched PCBS
Have you tried sending your PCBs to somewhere like Oshpark or DirtyPCBs to see what you get back? The quality for the price has been fantastic in my experience.
I recently started learning to solder myself by following Clive's advice and making some kits.
My first was a super-cheap kit with just a couple of flashing LEDs. I killed an LED by overheating it with the soldering iron. Luckily, I had a spare, and the rest of it went off without hitch.
The next was the very clock that I've just seen Clive put together. It works great, but I couldn't figure out the settings and it was too damn noisy, so it's resting at the back of a cupboard.
Next was a transistor tester, although it actually does a lot more than that. It's quite a sophisticated device, and useful in future electronics work.
I've got one more on order, and it's by far my most ambitious to date. An oscilloscope! :-)
then you aren't that far from making your very own SEM, it would be so fun to do it.
Thanks for sparing your valuable time to show us how assembling should be done. Can you show how to add a relay to the timer please!
Interesting!
Replace the buzzer with the coil of a relay and when the alarm goes off it'll run the relay
Very nice. Thanks dear
you solder basically the same as i do. i bought 3 different clock kit from various sellers and found 1 half worked, 1 did absolutely nothing and 1 worked perfectly. the one that works gain about 1 second per week. luckily it is the clck that i hoped would work, it had time date temp alarm and 60 led in a circle that showed seconds in about 20 different various. patterns. sill worked perfectly after about 1 year. the other two so-called clocks are in some fill site somewhere. :) i can turn chime on/off and can even set chime between certain hours only and not at other times.
I find it oddly relaxing watching you do this, Big Clive!
Didn't you get the 4 pounds of C4 and the bag of ball bearings with it? :P
Mark van Werven it came from China, dude...accessories sold separately.
The translations on the manual are priceless though, "place the round bearingballs in cute pattern", I mean, my chinese is worse, but still...
I love rising clamp terminals. They are so, so, so much more functional and easier to use.
A habit I've gotten into is to cut the ends off the leads of R's and C's while they're still in the endcaps, because the sticky residue would otherwise scrape off in the holes and get in the way of soldering.
Very Cool, You did a fantastic Job. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the kit they use in movie prop bombs haha
metalmaniacmat nearly, usually in movies they beep each second they countdown, as if no-one can hear or notice them! lol
jusb1066 Pretty sure that's post production :p
Tom Wilkinson I doubt it - just for giggles I built a "bomb" timer like in the movies and the uC made the silly "wheres that damn hero when we need him/her" chirping sound for each second the clock counted down. However in a lot of TV shows and movies I've seen the common garden variety kitchen timer with two rows of number buttons and a pair of control buttons made by micronta exhibit this behaviour and I actually have one in the kitchen. It has no beep function except when the time expires, so the each second chirp had to have been put into the film in post
You'd want to do the sound in post anyway to get a clean recording. Recording sound on location is challenging, the less you have to do it the better.
just watching randomly through your videos and got here now.
AFAIK the capacitors at the quarzoscillator are there to help it start up oscillating.
only does not work if they are really off, but often even works without them, solely by copper line capacities...
The exception to carrying solder is when soldering SMD chips. Basically, ome fixes the chip in place with Bluetak, put lots of flux over one set of pins. Then carry a blob of solder over to the pins and run it along that side. With a little practice, all the pins will be soldered without any solder bridges between them. Shame the SMD soldering practice kits don't have more chips.
I've just bought one of these clock kits.
Thanks for figuring out how to set it.
I'd have spent forever figuring it out, while getting 😡
IT uses AT89s51/at89c51. as this 8051 variant has very weak pullup feature, hence it uses the shunting arrangement where the display segments are turned off by providing alternate patch thru the microcontroller.
@1FireyPheonix totally understandable. :) it's easy enough to mix them up because they contain what the Chinese call Han zi, and the Japanese call kanji (hear the similarity?)
---- warning TL;DR rant approaching ---
they literally are the same characters often times with a similar or identical meaning. Hence numbers.
The only thing that changed, just like had happened across mainland China for hundreds of years before, the sounds that fit to the characters changed. This is also why Japanese kanji have what's known as an On and Kun reading, giving two pronunciations for a character. One the original Chinese, and one the Japanese pronunciation.
Both Simplified and Traditional Chinese use strictly Han zi and other symbols, whereas Japanese include the kanji, and 2 distinct syllabaries (like alphabets) call Hiragana, and katakana...
These two extra sets of characters help Japanese text to stand apart from Chinese. It helps if you know both too I suppose lol :P
I just desoldered the beeper. Silence is golden
I've just received four of these kits as I'm experimenting with a "quick and dirty" way of powering up incandescent filament bulb displays via optoisolators in place of the LED display. The whole lot came wrapped in a very static-inducing sheet of packaging!
MegaWayneD One slight downside of a multiplexed display is that if it's not fast enough it may cause a slight beat frequency on your triacs that manifests itself as a slight flicker. But only time will tell.
Yeah, I'm not totally convinced it will work but I figured at this price it was worth a try.
MegaWayneD Definitely worth a try, and if you do make a matrix of opto-isolators you can always try it with different modules to see if you can find one with a faster scan rate.
When I built a fairground game with large tungsten displays I used an M5450 LED driver since it is direct drive. I actually drove the triacs directly with the outputs.
That's worth knowing, thanks! The thing I'm working on is a bunch of car "festoon" bulbs arranged in the 7-segment way so it resembles RCA numitron filament displays.
MegaWayneD You can multiplex tungsten lamps too. That's what fruit machines do to drive either 64 (8x8) or 128 (8 x 16) lamps.
The film over the display is placed onto the the acrylic front clear section before the display is assembled. Any film covered surface like dvd players TV's and even new mobile phones is placed on after assembly
I hope you will do your reviews on the new kits from radio shack,they have a line of kits for 19.99 .if you haven't already done them. A lot of us buy some of our kits ,from your review or how to videos. Thanks I still trying to find more of your review ,etc.
That's more than I was expecting, actually.
Speaking of countdown timers, I needed a few of those for my wife who has to take medication then wait for a certain time for it to take effect before she can open her eyes once more (eye drops for glaucoma) I looked around on Ebay and some Chinese shops bout could not find exactly what I wanted, but I did find a fellow who had the diagrams and code to build small ones using the smallest Arduinos and a little 4 digit display. So I built her one for morning and one for evening (different times required) and one for our car as I pull her behind our RV when traveling and I need to run the engine for 5 minutes at each stop to keep the transmission lubricated. They are quite simple to build and run great on 9 volt batteries.
Hi Clive,
After watching this video, I went out and got this kit to solder as my first practice. It was great following along! Is it bad that I am learning to solder "Clive-style" holding the solder and PCB in one hand?
It would be a really neat project to cover the clock to large display made from discrete "straw hat" LEDs. One of your older videos had some really nice prototype panels.
Oh I want this kit.
I love easy kits like this.
I like the Elenco kits they are easy to follow kits. :)
Amazing video as always! Just wondering, you've inspired me to start soldering! Just wondering if you can recommend a half decent sdering iron to choose for a beginner, but one I will feel happy soldering with as I get better! Many thanks and keep up the good work!
Justin Parker A good general purpose iron that will serve you well will be an Antex XS. You can probably get one from Maplin, but I'd recommend using lead based solder which Maplin don't seem to sell. If you can get the iron along with a suitable stand that's even better.
Big Clive, the Bob Ross of the electronics world!
The way you use your fingers ,bet the lady’s love you 😍
Love the 50 herz hum! I love that sound, all i hear in my "Lab" are ear-busting high-frequency noisesfrom switch mode supplies... :( Thats the one thing im looking forward to aging, so i dont hear it anymore! XD
I really like the settings menu, easy to learn and uses only two buttons.
I tend to use long nose pliers when straightening the pins
I ordered a different clock kit and it's all surface mount components with a 0.5mm pitch microprocessor. That would make a great video.
Thanks Clive, I built this yesterday but did not know how to set the time, now thanks to you its done :) :ps, my wife shouted through to me ( whats that annoying noise).. so I have de-soldered the buzzer, we are both happy now :)
Let me no how that new kit turns out for you, do you have radio shack their,they seem to have a new line of kit there,
+Ron Thompson My wife threw the circuit board away by mistake, it was in a small brown jiffy bag, she didn't look inside and thought it was rubbish :( I have had to order a new one :)
+Ron Thompson No radio shack, I use ebay only :)
19:00 I too hate those 'protection leaf' terminals but if they don't screw them down for transport the damn' screws fall out.
Oh dear I recently took apart my old broken Commodore 64 and in the troubleshooting process I cleaned all the IC pins with sandpaper, I don't know if I got lucky but that didn't kill it with static after I swapped out the bad video chip
It's unfortunate but I was sold some quite rare vintage sound chips embedded in what only LOOKED like dissipative foam, Without a proper static shield bag too. Most of the cheap bits I get come incorrectly packaged. If you need to build something you might come to rely upon I'd suggest other sources.
I still love cheap eBay deals though. They keep my hobbies going.
Can x-ray machines damage electronics, when going through customs?
They're very low energy, so they shouldn't.
...Back in the1970's...Digi-key sold stuff like this....but you had to make your own CB from the parts in the kit and it used a 3 resistor voltage divider across the120 line for low voltage power....red LEDS 7-seg...then later a kit with vac-fluor tubes....
those little buzzers that seem to be everywhere are actually very simple electromechanical bells with the metal diaphragm also switching the coil.... I took one apart to see why I couldn't get one to sing.
That was a very interesting video. I hope you find time to do some more kit builds in the future.
I bought 3 of the other clock you built. I built one, and never got it to work. Checked polarity, checked solder joints, etc. Still didn't work. Figured the controller was cooked by the static in the foam.
Nothing like putting a kit together with a wee dram of single-malt. Recommend by your brother!
Ah eBay sellers and packing. Personal favourite: One of those plastic shipping bags 5% full of chips in individual polythene bags, and a bit of packing foam thrown on top for luck. Many bent/missing pins, much static, so wow.
spoonymccheese or fragile magnetics wrapped in bubble wrap tossed into a plastic shipping bag, not once but twice. Both cores ended up arriving in not so useful little bits instead of two useful halves!
Impressive number of features for a cheap kit!
Interesting way of driving the segments. Maybe the MCU can not source enough current to drive the segments directly, but can sink the current to shunt them out?
When I first watched this, I was wondering, "Why did they bother to include a socket for the IC instead of just putting it directly on the board?"
Then I watched Clive solder the thing going right down the rows. That's when the light bulb went on, "Oh, so an inexperienced amateur won't cook the chip while soldering it in place."
I'm going to assume, Clive, that you did it this way because you knew you were just soldering the socket, not the actual chip. When my dad taught me to solder, he was adamant about that concept:
*Never* solder adjacent pins on an IC one right after another.
*Always* solder diagonally opposite pins and, even then, it's a good idea to allow a few seconds cooling time after soldering each pin. When possible, keep a finger flat against the top of the chip while you're working. If it gets too hot to keep your finger on it, it's time to stop and let it cool before proceeding.
You might consider adding a caption to your video to point this out. :)
+Greg Wolking On the rare occasion I solder a chip in directly I stagger the soldering on opposing pins and also pause mid soldering to let the chip cool down. A socket is always preferred.
+bigclivedotcom
I had figured as much, Clive, as I stated previously. It's quite clear from your videos that you really know your stuff.
Thank you, sir, for taking the time to answer my inquiry. I thoroughly enjoy your videos. In particular, I find the calm, measured, "thinking out loud" style of your narration to be a refreshing change from many other "how-to" TH-camrs who seem to think they must become some kind of "character" telling jokes, cracking wise, getting ridiculously upset, and so on.
I have often wondered whether you plan what you intend to cover before you start recording or just go completely off-the-cuff every time. If the latter, it _sounds_ like the former, as you're very good at staying on point and not needlessly repeating yourself (AvE comes immediately to mind in that regard). You may count me as a fan, sir, and I applaud your endeavors!
Total novice here, I had actually ordered two of these so I could bugger up one of them and perhaps make the second one work. The first one didn't work due to my dodgy soldering and that night I saw this video, so today I attempted my second one and finally managed to produce something that doesn't look like a hedgehog and actually works. I think I might change the power supply widget though as I wanted to be able to plug it into a usb connection and so far it goes into a bread board and then into a USB connection which isn't ideal. Clive just sails through these videos, with double joints and a skill that makes my attempts look like a five year old poking things with a big stick. One day.... ;)
Kits like these are perfect for practising soldering though and are cheap! You could use a micro usb breakout board like this www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Female-MICRO-USB-to-DIP-5-Pin-Breakout-board-UK-STOCK-/252737357565?hash=item3ad85206fd:g:ZRAAAOSwjDZYgx05 for your USB connection!
Big Clive ,do u think a weller 40 watt soldering pen is to much,and what soldering pen do you use,I am sure you got good reason to use that pen with all the work you do.with it. A lot of pens tell you the temps.they run at that weller I am looking at is 900 degrees which seems a lot .my last two soldering pens were 30 watt pens.i have been soldering for over forty years and I been away from it for a while things change.
+Ron Thompson 40 watt seems quite high, except for soldering big connections. Nothing too much has changed in soldering, but try and avoid the lead-free solder.
cool clock ahmed
no ESD protection in Twing Twang... I ran into it a lot from Twing Twang.
I have used hundreds microcontrollers as rudely as you want and never had a single failure attributable to static. The inputs are protected. The earliest CMOS chips were not, so the lore has spread and still sticks..
Built a couple of those clock kits. The one like yours worked till I inadvertently hooked it up to my 12 volt power bank instead of the 5. The other had soldering iron problems. You see, I spend most of my time in a lift recliner because of my body condition, at any rate, I thought it would be a smart idea to buy one of those little cheap USB soldering irons. They do work GREAT for just tinning a lead or something but building a kit? Not so much. Seems they just keep heating up and suddenly the traces and pads are seperating and your kit is pretty much garbage. Ruined four or five different kits with that before it became a little used item. I finally bought a cheap mains type with thermostat on the handle taking the tips like the ones you use. It does a nice job if you are careful but I have yet to buy any more kits. I do have decor that I built up such as little Christmas trees and heart we put on the dash of our Motor Home while traveling and when we spend the winter months in Arizona to keep away from the dreaded snow of North and South Dakota.
lol what the fuck you on about mate.
Who the hell knows, some days I just ramble on, and on and on. I once considered myself a writer, even had a few short stories published, one in a magazine, another in a sci-fi anthology, but I gave it up and turned to computers, then to arduinos, then oh well you get the picture, hell I have been a soldier, a cop, a clerk to a district judge, and a carpenter. I have been a wood worker, a painter and a few other things I shan't go into, but the young in our family remember me the most as that uncle who tells the best ghost stories ever.
lol
Big Clive ,I just finished my clock kit ,I followed your video step by step,it seems to work except my buzzer ,I thought I might have reverse it,no it's just like yours,any idea ,I check to make sure no solder touch other pins,also ,I am looking for another soldering pen,my weller is 30 or more years old,what brand is your and where did you buy it.and how many watts. What is our time difference ,I am in California.also thanks for all your help.and your videos are the best.
+Ron Thompson Check the circuit path to the buzzer for solder bridges or dry joints. That includes from the processor pin via the resistor to the transistor and the beeper itself. Also make sure the transistor is in the right way round.
Thanks you so much ,I let you no if I find the problem,also thanks for your video,it made it easyer.
I bought one of these as im trying to get into electronic projects and teach myself soldering. Amazingly I have it running! I want to power it off of battery and have put three AA batteries together (4.6V) but it's draining them in a matter of hours. I KNOW NOTHING about electronics so wondered if you might know why? (I am assuming it has to do with draw and amps etc) ... also if you have any ideas about what batteries would be required to keep it battery powered if possible that would be great!
+darkunderworld It does draw too much current for battery use. It's really best used with a power supply.
Thanks for the quick and useful response! I bought it to practice soldering so its not the end of the world that it doesn't with a battery because of the current draw... so know I know that current is key to how long a battery will last :) THE MORE YOU KNOW!
Did you get invitation from Her Majesty to Buckingham Palace?
+ArrowAxe No. I've not been invited back since I took a dump in her handbag.
Loved the video. I solder the same way you do also. Have you noticed the Chinese kits have finer than normal wires on their resistor and capacitor leads?
y friend is also a scout leader ,and if you gives us a idea for him ,it might also work for his boy scouts too
I'm guessing the MCU is an ATtiny2313? They seem to be the go to for a lot of these kits.
Matthew Harrison (matthehat) AT 89C2051-24PU
bigclivedotcom Ah, an 8051 clone. Makes me wonder if it's based on something a lot older.
Could you measure the power draw of this kit? I would like to power it
from a AA battery with the help of a little step up converter. Would
this be possible? Btw, love your ASMR videos, got me into soldering.
Greetings from Germany!
The battery life would be very low if you used it to power this circuit.
Regarding "rising clamp terminals" - do they have another name? I just looked on eBay to get some (I'd not heard of them before - I've only used those crappy terminals you got in your kit), and there are a few, but really not many and every single one of them was from Maplin. Where are the Chinese cheapies?? So I'm wondering if they have another name I should search for? "screw terminal" just seems to find the basic cheap ones that you got here in your kit.
+TheBloke The rising clamp terminals are not cheap, so I don't see them much on eBay. They might not even describe them as rising clamp even if they were. The word "cage" is sometimes used, but that's still no guarantee of getting the better terminals.
+bigclivedotcom Awesome, thanks for the fast reply Clive! The Maplin ones are not unaffordable, at least when used sparingly for specific jobs, so I guess I'll just get a few of those. Actually rather than using eBay maybe I can find them in my local store, because they charge £2 for shipping which doubles the price in some cases.
But I'll have a look for "cage" terminals as well before I buy. Thanks again!
Does TH-cam really demonetize this as dangerous or whatever they seem to want to decide? I see it as educational, encouraging, and therapeutic.
And, if this is demonetized, we could all benefit from a periodic Mission Impossible theme music! And you could play it from an ‘80’s style 8-bit music generator, sold as a kit on eBay!
They're better now, but in the past technical and scientific channels would get videos demonetised fairly regularly. Usually when non technical people reported them as looking dangerous.