#3

This looks and sounds amazing!

If I even had a soldering iron, never mind knew how to solder, I’d be all over the waiting list like the proverbial cheap suit!

Hoping for more videos of Plinky-playing from people soon!

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#4

Here’s an example of the arp , William orbit eat your heart out

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#5

Is the arp ratcheting?

[…plink envy increases…] :rofl:

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#6

It depends how many notes are being played , if you are playing 3 notes and take one finger off the rate is then split between the other two , increasing their repeat rate. So I think yes is the answer?

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#7

Just skimming the manual… That thing is deep!

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#8

It’s got a learning curve for sure but also instantly gratifying

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#9

Thonk has a waitlist up for the next run in Feb. Whoop!

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#10

[…googles ‘soldering for beginners’…]

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#11

i would recommend this as a good first project to solder. there is nothing too tricky about any of the soldering joints in this project. almost all the components sit in the pcb really well so you don’t have to worry about hooking up holders and whatnot. even the smd leds are really easy to do because the pcb guides exactly how they are placed. the build guide does an excellent job of providing a tutorial for everyone (including beginners) as it includes both videos and nice doc.

if you get the kit it comes with tweezers so you just need to supply the soldering iron and the solder. i would also highly recommend getting “precision wire cutters” and brass cleaner:

the cleaner is helpful for making sure your iron stays clean and hot all around. the precision wire cutters are helpful because there is one step where you need to trim a few pins precisely. i didn’t have one and hacked them off terribly but everything still works just fine.

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#12

I was so impressed by how good Plinky sounded from the limited amount I heard that I ordered one - just received the kit yesterday. I’m currently waiting for a soldering iron to arrive in the mail and I’ve never soldered anything before either, so I’m glad to hear more than one person say this is a good project to start with. Loving the sounds people are posting and I’m super excited to get this up and running.

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#13

Great advice all around. If anyone new to soldering is ordering solder I would also recommend getting a decent brand (like kester) of the skinny stuff (I use .5mm/.02" diameter) as you just need a little dot to get started on smd parts (I use this for through hole too no sweat).

There are a few techniques for smd- what I find easiest is to put a dot of solder on one pad, slide the component next to it with tweezers, then put iron to soldered pad and push component into place. Then do the other side of the component which should be nicely held in place, and finally return to the first side you did adding a tiny bit of solder (just to make sure the component and pad both got “enough” heat to get a good bind). This sounds like a tedious slog but if you do a bunch at a time with each step you can get moving at a pretty good clip.

Also, clear your workspace as a component will inevitably go flying and you’ll have to find it :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_monocle:

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#14

Thank you so much for this - it’s really useful information and helps make me feel a little less overwhelmed by the idea of building something like Plinky! :smiley:

1 Like
#15

Alex just linked to another very detailed build thread over on Twitter with some amazing close-up photos which some of you may find useful.

But I have to say it’s just fuelling my anxieties about building Plinky :frowning:

I’d still very much like to get one when they become available again, but am now thinking I may have to factor in the cost of paying someone who knows what they’re doing, to build it for me. Ah well.

1 Like
#16

i’d like to continue to encourage you :slight_smile: looking at the twitter thread i can definitely see why you might be intimidated. however, a lot of that thread does unnecessary things and makes them unnecessarily complicated. for instance:

  • you don’t need to cut out a window out of acrylic - this is not part of the kit. i suppose they didn’t like the PO-asthetic and wanted something more protective on the screen. they did that extra so you can ignore all that stuff about uv bonding glue + measuring+milling acrlyic to 0.05 mm precision etc.
  • you don’t need a flux pen to dot the solder on. a regular solder iron works excellent, and is super easy. solder likes to stick to the pads, and the pads are pretty big and easy to get solder onto. its actually very satisfying to do it with a solder-iron.
  • you don’t need tablet protector film - again this is not part of the kit. again i think they wanted to be more protective…but this actually caused connection issues (the plate is capacitance sensing so anything you add to it will modulate it).
  • they took lots of care to make the headers perfectly flat - however there is more room for error here than they make it seem. check this out, one side of my board didn’t lie flat enough so they didn’t touch those headers - but i still soldered them without a problem and it still works wonderfully:

PXL_20201220_161514030
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i would still recommend this project to start soldering. it gives you a lot of practice (there are 80 smd leds - super easy and will build your skills!). if you are really worried i would ask a friend to watch over you while you solder, and also get one of these:

that’s a desoldering device - so if you make a mistake it should be fairly easy to “start over”. the worst mistake would be destroying the pcb, but honestly this is probably very unlikely unless you take a hammer to it or start poking it randomly with the solder iron. the most likely mistake might involve destroying a header or a connector - but you can easily get more of those for less than a dollar and desolder your bad one and try again.

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#17

Thank you! I tweeted with Alex earlier (he confirmed what you thought, that all the screen stuff was improvised) - he suggested trying a few Velleman kits off Amazon to get up & running and building up some confidence. He thought that, after that, Plinky wouldn’t be any harder!

I’m really grateful to you and everyone else for the support and encouragement, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it :hugs:

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#18

I ordered one too. I’m really excited for this one.
Edit:
Just got email it’s coming my way :smile:
Now wondering it will get stuck at the border in the current situation.

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#19

It is so lovely

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJRxo1Xl6E8/?igshid=10lq4ibbjqs19

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#20

Just wanted to report that I successfully built Plinky today as my first soldering project ever! It took me just about all day moving at a snail’s pace but everything works as it should (amazingly).

I ran into a few snags (like soldering the screen on a tiny bit crooked) but ultimately it was fairly simple, just a bit tedious at times for sure.

Give it a shot!

5 Likes
#21

For people who are still going to build this:
In the build manual they make the suggestion of installing your own preference color of leds.
They also give part numbers for it. The leds in the kit are white. They are quite bright and i find plinky painful for my eyes after using it for some time. I wish i would have installed red or orange leds in the panel.
That being said it brings me on the idea:
If someone still needs to build their kit and are a bit afraid of installing the leds (it’s doable) i would happily trade my white leds soldered front panel for an unsoldered one. :slight_smile:

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#22

Man this Plinky is so cool, I’m bummed that the next batch got pushed from February to May!

Hopefully I can get in in the next round!

1 Like