It’s very straightforward just through-hole but a lot of pieces so I think took me 3 hours?
Tip - do not solder the ts connector jacks without the faceplate on first
1 Like
I dont have any of those modules myself. But I dont see why you wouldn’t use them after building them. They are legit modules, not just soldering practice.
(You can get soldering practice kits if thats what you want)
I recently built a mixer kit (befaco st mix) its small, and very basic, but it does the job and sounds good. Does its job. Sure its not a fancy mixer, but I didnt get it because it was fancy, I got it because thats all I needed.
Hope that makes sense?
2 Likes
My question was rather rhetorical 
Let’s say: would you use the EDU BD if you already have a super advanced Steady State Fate Ultra Kick in your case?
Me personally, I wouldnt buy the diy kit for something I already had eg: a bass drum module. Unless for some reason I needed two bassdrum modules?
I make diy kits because I actually need the thing, not just for the fun of building a kit. (Though I do enjoy building kits)
Maybe take the diy bit out and just look at the modules. Would you want them? If yes, you can buy them in kit form and build them yourself.
1 Like
I lost my DIY mojo after ruining a kit. It had a pre-poulated SMD board & i ended up overheating one of the SMD parts. It was the ST Modular Radio. After building an MTM Turing Machine & Spring Reverb, it completely knocked my confidence. I’ve got a Befaco ST Mixer sat looking at me and this thread is inspiring me to get back on the wagon.
1 Like
This is a more general issue with kits, I think. If everything goes well, it’s fun and easy but once things turn out not to work and it’s not simply a matter of checking for solder bridges, you need an electrical engineer’s worth of knowledge to fix it.
You can buy SMD components at mouser - the kits aren’t proprietary for the most part so if you ruin something just spend the nickel to replace it.
Solder wick and a solder sucker will correct errors or fix a solder bridge. I bought a multimeter to check continuity but ive never used it on soldering projects. It’s awesome for checking if batteries are dead tho! Kids toys use hella batteries and they’re not all equally dead! (im not a monster we’ve been buying rechargable too)
Speaking from tons of experience as an electrical engineer (I’m not - 3 projects total)
Yeah, but soldering SMD is nothing to sneeze at.
It’s also not fun to me, like through hole is. But ymmv, I guess.
Nice kit, well dokumented, I would not recommend it as a beginners kit, but when set up, lots of fun to play with. If you get stuck on the way, the maker is very helpful and very inthusiastic.
1 Like
Elmyra 1 is straight forward. Ive built one.
Elmyra 2 much more advanced. Havent built one but have read the BOM and build guide.
I’ve built the Elmyra 2.
If you have some experience with soldering, I think it’s not a difficult kit. I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners, mostly because of a few tight fits near SMD components (mostly passives that you can’t really damage, but you can accidentally desolder them easier than you think, speaking from experience) – you should feel comfortable with your soldering iron, basically, before tackling this build – but it’s not an advanced build. If you’re reading this and thinking “I’ve soldered a few tight fits already,” then you should be fine.
2 Likes
To get a better idea, you can download the diy build guide here:
Perfect, this helped me figure it out. I’ve soldered some tight fits before.
Thanks to everyone for the replies. I’m also curious about suggestions for other DIY kits, especially in the area of semi-modular desktop units.
1 Like
My recent obsession.
I’ve built a few modules past year and I’m quite enjoying it. It just feels quite serene and helps me to soothe my add ridden brain.
I’m kinda doubting myself whether if I should be focusing on soldering or trying to secure my job because AI is going to replace me in a few years (designer here)
But still - lately nothing actually making me stay up until 3pm (except balatro lol) I do have a shitty youtube channel where I record my soldering sesh’s without any commentary. Just noticed that there wasn’t much of a video guide for the diy kits and I though it might be helpful to someone else at some point.
this is 5 hr long as it was a super long project thonk
There are few videos also in line but I’m just taking my sweet time to edit them. I think I’ll finish editing RYK185’s video. And building archaea’s loki right now but my camera just farted three times during recording. so I hope it’ll end up nice.
–
lol this is such a shameless self spam. I just really like diy stuff, it wasn’t me trying to plug my own vids. I’m sorry if it feels like it. admins; feel free to delete my post if it breaks the rules.
3 Likes