Skill Level
CRX1 assembly is intended for those who have had a moderate amount of experience in assembling and soldering electronics kits. Nearly all of the parts are surface mount technology. The CRX1 was designed as an introduction to surface mount kit building for those who have experience in through-hole kit building. The components are large enough to handle reasonably easily (US size 0805) and are spaced out enough to give you plenty of working space on the PCB. All components are installed on one side of the PCB.
Tools and Equipment
Below are a list of tools and equipment that are used to assemble and align the CRX1. The bare minimum equipment is listed in the Required section, while any handy extras are listed in the Optional section. For more details about which tools to select, please see the Surface Mount Tutorial for Beginners.
Required
- Soldering iron with fine chisel or round tip
- Rosin core solder, 0.015” or 0.020” diameter recommended
- Tweezers
- Diagonal cutters
- Approx. +12 VDC power supply with 2.1 mm barrel connector, 50 mA minimum
- Digital multimeter
- Magnifying device (many types available, such as an eye loupe, lighted magnifier, stereo microscope, etc.)
Optional
- Solder flux pen (not required but highly recommended)
- Oscilloscope (at least 25 MHz bandwidth)
- Frequency counter (capable of counting to at least 12 MHz)
- Parts Identification
Your CRX1 kit is packaged with nearly every component individually labeled, so component identification is a breeze as long as you place unused components back in the same packaging after each use. Only the connectors and a few larger parts are packaged together without identification, but the Assembly Guide will help you to identify the correct part at the appropriate step.