When it came to building this it was pretty fun, everything from the instructions to the layout of parts was very pleasant and should be more than easy enough for a novice to be able to learn how to solder.When it comes to playing it that's a different thing entirely, I don't know if it's a program fault or a limitation of the buttons but playing anything that requires precision and speed like Tetris is exceptionally hard, the delay between button presses and when something happens on screen is too much, but for something like snake or the racing game on it, they work a lot better.Overall, as a soldering learning project this is a very useful little kit, but if you're looking to enjoy the games on it thoroughly after assembling it, I feel that part is a bit of a letdown.I would still be willing to give it my recommendation though as a learning tool rather than an entertainment tool

This is a good kit for learning to solder through-hole components on circuit boards. The surface-mount work is already done and the components here are large and spaced out from each other enough to not present any real trouble, so a novice to soldering can focus on their technique above all else.

I'm not very experienced with soldering but I love tinkering with electronics, so I jumped at the chance to try out this kit. It's a great way to get some practice with soldering and the fact that you get to build a game gives you some motivation to get it done. I had my 13-year-old son help me solder everything together and he really enjoyed learning about soldering and basic electronics, too.The instructions that accompany the kit were clear and within a reasonable short amount of time, we had everything soldered together and were able to try out the four different mini games.Really cool kit for the tinkerer in your life!

This is a great set. I used it to teach several of the kids on my robotics team about soldering. Kids aged 8-11 were all able to solder with some assistance. I helped them to get started, but after a few connections they were all able to solder on their own. Once completed the device started right up using AA batteries. I did not try using the USB connection yet. The games on it are fun to play and will keep the kids entertained during some of their breaks.One thing to keep in mind is that it does not come with solder (or a soldering iron), so you will have to provide those.The instructions were pretty clear, especially if you have done any other solder kits in the past.

I got a few of this style kit when I was a young kid and I loved playing with them to make different projects back then. I picked this up for my son to get him into tinkering as a hobby like me. Cell phones and video games these days really steal a kids imagination unfortunately as he is much less interested in it than I used to be but thats okay. This kit is complete and perfect for the younger person who can stay focused long enough to tinker around and make some really cool projects on their own.

This DIY soldering game console kit is very easy to complete, with only about a dozen components to solder to complete the build. The user can either use 4 AA batteries or plug into a USB-C cable to power on the device. It's not the most ergonomic handheld console in the market, but probably the best out of the DIY, soldering kit niche market. It's quite a rewarding experience to have the device launch into a boot sequence with the flick of a switch as a sure proof that you've completed the build successfully.I'd rate this kit highly in terms of documentation and ease of "assembly" as a result. Objectively speaking, the completed build is lacking in a lot of ways when judged solely as a handheld gaming device. The buttons are too hard to press, noisy due to excessive "clickyness", along with a noticeable input delay albeit still quite playable.As far as for game offerings, it comes with 4 in total; Tetris, Snake, a "racing game", and a clone of Space Invaders. Tetris is okay, but frustrating to play due to the aforementioned button delay. And oh yeah, the machine fails to register button presses at an error rate of about 10% from my experience. The game Snake is not a true clone and an inferior one at that. This, as the game ends as soon as the snake bumps into the edges of the screen as opposed to emerging out the opposite end. The racing game is regrettable and not even worth mentioning. The last game, space invaders clone plays more like Missile Command on steroids which isn't as enticing as I made it sound just now.To close, it's a nice soldering practice kit with a nice rewarding factor as the user is left with a functioning handheld gaming device upon a successful completion. Admittedly, it's not a perfect machine to play with as previously noted. But as with all things that are good in life, it's more about the process--- the journey than the destination. 5 out of 5 stars, highly recommended to beginner solderers and curious youths.

This is a fun kit for soldering noobs. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t have any knowledge before attempting it, though. I’ve done a lot of beginner kits, and you’ll still want some basics to help you in putting most of them, including this one, together. That said, you COULD assemble this one without knowledge, but it would take quite a bit more time to figure out not only the technique, but what the pieces are. Not impossible, but just more difficult. It’s a good kit, though, and if you’re looking to hone your skills on something that will be a fun project, get this one.

I found this soldering project kit a fair challenge. As in there was a bit of difficulty, but it didn't feel like the difficulty was coming from the kit being poorly thought-out or sadistic. If anything, it proves I need some more soldering practice, but building something that actually works and plays little games is a pretty good incentive to do just that.I really appreciated that the manual was well written, with helpful pictures especially. And it was really nice to see there were some spare parts in case you messed up. I'll admit, I needed both spare capacitors. I did mess up the placement of the capacitors, but that was on me for not being careful enough. I still managed to somehow get them in place, despite making a bit of a mess of the board in the process. But again, that's on me for not following directions as thoroughly as I should've. Still, even with my admittedly sub-par work, it still turns on and the games are playable. So it's not the type of project that demands perfection, thankfully.The finished product isn't too spectacular as far as handheld electronic games go, but it does exactly what it was claimed to do. I like that they pre-soldered the little surface-mount microcontroller, because that would have been brutal for this type of kit. I would recommend having someone on hand with more soldering experience if something goes wrong, but like I said, it's a fair challenge.As for the games, they're basic but playable. I especially like the rocket ship shooting game. I think I got about 400 points on it after playing for longer than I'd like to admit. And the little beeper speaker is a neat touch, but I definitely appreciate that you can turn it on/off. The dot matrix displays and the 7-segment digits at the top are bright and clear. And you can power it off USB-C or 4 AA batteries. It was genuinely fun soldering the USB-C port onto the board. The acrylic enclosure is also a nice touch. Makes it feel closer to a legitimate product as opposed to a DIY kit. And I think the price is reasonable, if not so much for the finished product than at least for the amount of practice it can provide. It takes about 2-3 hours minimum to assemble, so it would make a great weekend or rainy day project.

Well like the title says this thing has by far the best PCB and instructions manual I’ve ever come across the fact that it came with the one surfacemount chip already. Attached is a really nice touch, especially considering how sensitive to heat they are and how small that particular chip is there’s many of kits that I’ve had to run single or strand of wire in place where I bridged to pins and while attempting to disorder them ending up burning through the traces in the PCB, I think this is exactly as the ad claims aimed for beginners to intermediate personally, I’ve got quite a few years of professional experience under my belt as I was an electrical tech for a company that manufactured first response an emergency service vehicle vehicles mostly ambulances, and my background is as a automotive service technician so I’m no stranger turning the tips and keeping them clean. I’m in the process of setting up currently, actually as I dictate this through speech to text and taking it back with the quality of this printed circuit board, I am almost certain that it is made out of metal with some sort of nonconductive material on top is how it seems. It’s well packaged. I’m legitimately impressed. Generally, I prefer more challenging projects, although they’re getting to be quite scarce as I’ve went through the vast majority of the readily available ones most of which I struggled through because of non-temperature controlled cordless soldering irons with too much power, but now that I have my M1 max by FANTTIC and I’ve had some time to really get used to this beast I must say first of it is by far the nicest soldering iron I’ve ever used and I spent most of my career behind in industrial weller soldering stations worth north of $500 and pushing into the thousand dollar range for some of them for a single soldering station sadly there obsolete now they discontinued them within the past five years or so replaced with the digital stations, but my experience was with the automatic temperature controlled analogue unit for the most part and in all sincerity after having went through six or seven soldering irons in the past six months with the exception of the Milwaukee M 12 soldering iron and a new one that just popped up the name escapes me, but it’s something like the pencil without a battery and it plugs in either AC or into its own soldering station, which is a battery pack fundamentally so it gives you more of the traditional soldering station kind of vibe but we’re also talking north of 250 $300 versus you can pick up the FANTTICT T1- max for right around the $99 Canadian range if you were patient and you shop the sales and use some promo codes and what I like about it is not only do you have for temperature control settings and amazing LED halo light around the tip itself directly aimed at your work akin to Ingersoll rand cordless impact wrenches it comes with its own docking station for lack of a better word with a hidden drawer that holds extra tips. It comes with a nice aluminum alloy solder sucker 10 or more sponges extra silicone tips for your older sucker. it’s just well well well equipped not to mention the five or six different style tips of which is the E210 which is a industry standard fairly small one but shared by many well-known brands across the board, not a proprietary design whatsoever. They last a very long time to heat up incredibly fast they can be found relatively easily, and there are numerous versions available. He can get the ice pack. You can get the fishing hook. You can get the slanted chisel. You can get the flat blade like there are quite a few personally I like the what I call the ice pick which is the thinnest sharpest point there is you can get in and if you bridge contacts on surfacemount this is the tip that’s gonna get you out of it that or the same tip lengthen a little with a hook in the shape of a J I call it the fish hook, but for this particular project, the diagonal chisel is what I think it’s referred to and it’s exactly that it’s a slanted flat blade. That’s actually got a bevel to it so it has the exact shape of a very tiny chisel which I find allows you to go in and just spread where you need to spread, but then you can also do very fine detail type solder or very delicate corrections if a blob accidentally falls or your table gets knocked into by someone or something and you accidentally bridge to pads, which is the point that I like to shut her down and take the dog out for a walk because I know two things are gonna happen at that point one is I’m going to get more and more frustrated, which is going to generally cause me to make more mistakes as opposed to correcting them and too as I try to correct the situation, I am adding more and more heat to the board into the components, especially with the surface mount, and the IC type chips, the integrated circuits it’s bad enough if you burn out the pad under your blow water and you have to use a little piece of one of your resistors to bridge the gap. It looks kinda hard, but it gets the job done but when it happens with surfacemount stuff, and you were literally having to use multi strand wire that you’ve pulled a single strand or two and span them together in order to tenant directly to the pin and then connect it down stream further than where it really needs to because you’ve buggered it up too much and then not knowing it’ll work after the fact because Lord knows if you’ve heated it up enough to do that. Well, you get where I’m going I digress I’m just giving a little bit of background and a little bit of personal experience and preference that might come in handy for you. I don’t know, but if you’re reading this kind of looking at getting it for yourself to practice slaughtering that you’re new to it or a fun game to build with a brother sister a child Denise and nephew or even a friend has just a let’s get started in this you start putting these together. Next thing you know you’re building Dev boards for raspberry pie unlocking some never before witnessed functionality. The next Wozniak is only learning how to tin wire away from being discovered. In the next Jobs is in the next room yelling to hurry up while preparing to be discovered all joke society it’s put it this way in college. The one part of the course that I struggled with the most there was a miracle that I actually passed that part of the course was the electrical which instead of being one block for six weeks or something every day was done the entire length of the course once a week for an entire day as opposed to just doing it all at once and I don’t really know how it happened but sometime after finishing the course I ended up with a job as an electrical technician. I remembered just enough about reading schematics that I could actually sit there and follow a wiring diagram and understand what it was. This is a diet that’s a resistor. This is where the ground is, and it must’ve been enough to make an impression because next thing you know that was my career and up until unforeseen circumstances occurred that left me disabled and unable to continue on my chosen field. I was actually pretty darn good at what I did I mentioned this only because I hope that there’s some 16-year-old similar to me whose a little nerdy, a little misfit and hungry for knowledge because you’ll find your way and there’s nothing better in this life than seeing the look on your professor’s face when they’re going through the production floor of your workplace him having no idea you were there and you full well know that he assumed you would never amount to anything to turn his head and dis not only see you there, but to see you in charge of a major project as a supervisor in the exact specialty that is based around the subject in college that almost cost you your education the look of complete shock and surprise followed by genuine happiness for you is the feeling that I hope you get to experience one day just the same type of reason that I didthat this is gonna be nothing for anybody to be able to accomplish if you understand the basics tender tips keep your tips, exceptionally clean a rag or even paper towel with water should be more than enough to wipe the soldering iron don’t be scared and actually damp is better than what if it’s too wet. You’re only going to solidify everything right there to the tip because it’ll be too cold and it’ll make everything get hurt and basically do nothing for you so even hot water doesn’t work that great just dam enough that it’s wet but not enough that it is dripping and just grab that tip. Squeeze it and give it away. Don’t be scared. Use common sense you don’t want to burn yourself but it’s not that hard and then use your sponge or your wall awesome very often your sponge only damp enough not to basically char where you wipe if you put pressure enough further to be steam as you push down and wipe it should be shiny at all times at the tip if there’s any large masses or chunks that start getting dull gray as opposed to silver kind of colour that white kind of aluminum is sterling silver that’s when you want to take your wire snips or any other piece of metal with an edge and just scrape it off while it’s still molten it won’t stick to the metal but it’ll get it off your tip remember less is more when you’re doing wires put the tip to the bottom of the wire and hold the solder itself on top of the wire. Let the wire get hot enough to melt the solder and when it melts and it flows into the multi strand wire when you bend that connection it should be an eighth of an inch if not a quarter of an inch in past the insulation that doesn’t bend because the solder itself is through capillary reaction. Been wicked up in and that’s when you know you’ve got a proper bond in your tips in the wires go through tin your components, bend the prongs and cut them size with a little bit of extra just in case and then just go through and tin them in the pads if you’d like, although I don’t find been necessarily need it in the same way as the actual components and the lawyers do, but if you tell them beforehand keeping in mind that with through hole, it has to still be able to fit through the hole so it is barely enough to be visible with no big bubbles or masses, but what I like to do with that is if your components are pretend, then, just put a little tiny bit of just no just enough sorter that it’s slightly proud of the tending then you can go down to your component and you literally just touch it and if it’s been pretend that tanning will melt and that melted so will as close to immediately as you can get stuck in the molten soda off the tip the perfect joint every time it’s a little cheat code I guess for lack of a better word to accomplish the job without having to depend on heating the component or the wire for that one because you can’t do it with these with these you wanna be in and out as quickly as Possible especially with any type of electrolytic resistors aren’t normally so bad transistors and capacitors are about those diodes don’t like it either just take your time. I’ll suggest the populate the board first generally with a little bit of finesse you can use your snips to bend the legs to put them down in without actually cutting. If you do for some reason, break a leg off of a resistor or anything really transistors I’ve had no luck with, but that’s normally because it’s a little too excessive but LEDs and resistors I’ve had that have broken off in the wrong place because they got a kink in them or something and what I’ll do is I’ll take an off cut from one of the resistors. I will solder it to where the missing leg is supposed to be I will tin the tip. I will tin the remaining knob on the component and then basically just overlap them and turn them together if you have enough of a knob it’s actually doable, but you wanna put that length of offcut and have it in the PCB before you join it because what will happen is you’ll finally get it to the component. It’ll be in place. You will be proud of yourself then you’ll go to put this order in as soon as it starts to harden at the joint the heat dissipates and the Lego just fall off because it’ll be too hot and it’ll separate the joint it’s in your best interest as you’re populating the board and cutting these legs length. Keep them some projects actually need them to be used but mistakes happen. Chances are at one point or another you or someone else you know is going to burn through the pad and you’re basically gonna have to take an X-Acto knife for an olfa or whatever. Scrape away from part of the PCB in that trace that hasn’t been damaged to basically expose that paper, thin sheet of gold wire or gold, plated, copper or whatever it’s made with depending on the manufacturer that is and simply just take one of those off cuts tenet the length, and then with tweezers lay it down over overlap it by an eighth of an inch or quarter of an inch, if you can on the new connection point, which is basically just wherever that trace is heading to as soon as you can find a spot that’s not too busy that accessible and what not that’s what I do generally, the other thing you could do is follow where that trace leads what component and just connect the ground side of this resistor to the ground side of this diode or whatever and just basically omit that particular integrated circuit or the printed circuit at that point, you’re just doing the same thing just you’re going backwards and technology in the sense you’re going through whole printed circuit board to point to point wiring but being able to think fast and go ahead and do these types of things can lead to some really interesting revelations, as well as helping troubleshoot and problem solve on the fly because if you go about this with the Bob Ross mentality of there are no mistakes only happy accidents that lead the new opportunities pull less hair out and you’ll be a lot less gray in the process. Electrical only seems intimidating, but if I can do it, and I’ll only do it, but actually live for it to do it as part of a leisure activity. It be the equivalent of a seventh grader doing mental math multiplication tables for fun you got this and this is a beautiful project. It’s just hard enough to offer a little bit of challenge without being unreasonable. The only thing I’d like to figure out is if there would be a way to omit the matrix screens and replace them with actual LEDs wired in series, parallel together point to point and basically suspended from the holes that are provided I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible, but I’m not going to attempt it with this particular one, but I’ve seen other versions of the same and held console that weren’t quite as nice for lack of a better word and I think that it could be fun to get one and essentially make my own matrix screen for it so does it do the thing depends what your definition of doing the thing is if it’s playing a game that’s gonna totally depend on your patience and still level I guess although looking at this, there’s really nothing here that needs me to believe that true beginner wouldn’t be able to do this a couple of electrolytic matrix a couple of buttons momentary button buttons in the battery box the board itself looks scarier than it is because of all the Holes but don’t forget things like the switches four of the holes for those switches. They’re actually anchors they’re not actually attached to anything. They don’t serve a purpose other than to mount the component to the board same thing with the USB plugs a lot of the time to me the thing that this is doing is having fun soldering something together and the challenge of getting it to work at least it was when I was using really low quality, my suggestion is if you’re a high schooler with a low budget or even married with children and have a limited toy fund for grown-ups I mean the frog bro 11 want cordless soldering iron is actually remarkably good and with practice you can use the momentary heat pad on pad because it goes into sleep mode if your thumb isn’t on this little pressure sensitive pad that the other models that use the same basic design don’t have you can use it like a temperature control because it does get quite hot and it also gives you more than the 30 minutes of use that it calls for because it goes into a sleep mode the one kind of negative about it is that it can’t be plugged in while using whereas the FANTTIC T-1 Max offers AC functionality so you can run the battery dead plug it in the wall and continue on or you can just use it while it’s plugged in or completely solo. The only question I really have regarding this particular unit is serviceability versus the frog bro, because the frog bro is a clam show put together and the lightbulb style socket in which you screw the tips into have a tendency of getting fatigued and cracking leading to flashing lights because of a short, but if you take it apart, you can solder it back to the PCB and be back on your way in no time but for 45 bucks you’re not gonna find a better option than that specific model. There are some that are more cost-effective and at one point you could buy an entire I forget the name of it, but it was basically the same as a frog bro without the momentary touchpad and without quite as nice refinements Nicola was a hair different. The circuit was identical, but it came with two extra tips and a bunch of extra accessories and it actually worked out to cost three dollars more for that entire kit then it would have to get two tips two replacement tips for mine so I got it and ended up gifting it of course, but I digress I hope you enjoy as much as I’ve enjoyed sharing my thoughts about it. Stay safe and happy soldering.

This kit is easy to solder with good instructions. The IC is already onboard so the remaining parts are easy to attach making this great for beginners. The final product is very rewarding and fun to play with.

I got this in an effort to teach my wife to solder. It's all through-hole soldering with well spaced components so easy enough for beginners. What I appreciate is that it provides a functional target to build, moreso than many practice kits, since the result of this is a working game. Great value for the money for practice soldering and mini video game combined.

Amazing product. He even considers making another one to keep in the car

This "LePanda" branded DIY Game Console caught my eye when I came across the listing. I had not even been thinking about an item such as this, but immediately thought this could make for a nice gift for my young nephew as well as provide a STEM like learning experience that I could share with him.This set comes in a colourful, printed retail style packaging. The nice presentation alone makes it a very giftable item. Opening the box reveals a complete set of parts for a full featured experience from start to finish. There are just enough small pieces to make this a nice challenge and learning exercise without being too overwhelming. There are 50 or so pieces altogether. To clarify, this is definitely NOT something that I think is appropriate for very small children as there is measure of complexity here along with the fact that some soldering will be required. (You of course need to supply your own soldering kit)Detailed instructions are provided and I feel that this is a great kit that you can share with your kids as a bonding experience and that sharing could overcome any issues with some of the initial complexity for younger minds who are budding electronics hobbyists. You can also teach them some basic soldering skills while providing some supervision along the way.Overall, I am impressed with the general quality of this product. This is not just a "toy" as the whole experience is more like a sort of model building kit along with a science project in one, with the added benefits that it will teach some useful skills to your kids and provide them with hours of fun in the making of it all. And, at the end, they will have the added satisfaction of being able to bring real functioning retro style game console "to life" so to speak. To to clear, the games themselves are rudimentary at best, but can still be fun and their style has a 70's sort of charm that brings back a lot of childhood memories for me.I feel the current listing price of $29.14 is reasonable for what you are getting here . When I consider the hours of enjoyment the overall learning experience will provide, I don't feel that this is pricey at all. That price is directly in line with the value and quality of the product. I certainly feel this is worth considering for its unique retro charm. I am recommending this LePanda DIY handheld gaming kit.