Making Eighties Clock

Here are instructions for making eighties clock. You have some freedom in how you build your clock: we have two different PCB versions that you can solder stuff to (either through-hole or surface mount), or you can use breadboards or perfboards if you prefer that. The full schematic is here. There's a bit more specific stuff below based on what version you're making. If you've never done stuff like this before, we think it's probably best either to keep using breadboards or to make the through-hole PCB version. Also definitely ask us for help with things; the instructions below are a little sparse, but we're happy to help with whatever.

A few little notes first:

• The components in the schematic have labels and values, but if you're building one of the PCBs, the board itself is just labeled with the names, so you'll need to cross-reference with the schematic to know what values to grab for each spot on the board.
• There are some values in the schematic that are labeled as 100kΩ, but don't worry about using that exact value; it's fine to use the resistors from the bin called R_button (or really pretty much anything).
• For the capacitors labeled as 15pF, it might be better to use 10pF instead (we have some of those around).
• If you're doing the through-hole version of the PCB, don't solder the chips directly to the board! We have these little socket thingies instead...you should solder those to the board, and then slot the chips into the sockets.

Then some advice/intro stuff for soldering if you're doing once of the PCBs:

• Soldering Instructions (through-hole)
• Soldering Instructions (surface-mount)

Questions?

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