Alpenglow Yarn ASC-0001 User manual
ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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Angry Storm Cloud
PCB Blinky Badge Solder Kits
FEATURES
2 555 timers
BLINK/SOLID switch
ON/OFF switch
Battery included
Magnets and adhesive pin for “pinning”
and making it wearable
APPLICATIONS
A gift that keeps giving
Improving your soldering skills
An easy way to tell someone how you
really feel
PCB badge collections
DESCRIPTION
It's a surface mount solder-it-yourself kit
that drives 4 LEDs in a heartbeat-style blink
pattern by cascading two 555 timers. It also
is a terrible, terrible, awful layout. Especially
if you like things to be straight and 45 and
90 and neat and tidy. Give it to yourself as a
positive affirmation that you really do kick
ass despite your oddities or give it passive-
aggressively to your "favorite" person. It
also has an on/off switch and blink/solid
switch and includes a CR2032 battery. If
that’s not enough we also included 2 super-
strong neodymium magnets, and an
adhesive pin.
After assembly:
ASC-0001
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ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Unpack Your Kit & Download/Print
Assembly Diagram
Full kit:
2. Solder 555 Timers
Back of board with 555 timers:
3. Solder All of the Resistors
Back of board with resistors:
4. Solder All of the Capacitors
Back of board with capacitors:
ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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5. Solder All of the Diodes
Back of board with diodes:
6. Solder the Switches
Back of board with switches:
7. Flip Board Over, Solder LEDs
Front of board with LEDs:
8. Flip Board Over, Solder Battery
Holder
Back of board with battery holder:
ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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9. Attach the Adhesive Pin
Back of board with adhesive pin:
10. Clean off the Flux
This step can be important for this
board. Especially if you've used a
water-soluble flux, the residue can
actually conduct enough to alter the
blinking circuit! Crazy, huh? This has
actually caused issues with
production electronics, so now you
know a true pro tip. Clean off your
flux, even if it's rosin. No-clean
might be OK, depending. For water
soluble flux, use warm water. For
rosin or no-clean, use 90% or higher
isopropyl alcohol. In either case, it's
also nice to blow off your board with
canned air, to get any residual water
or alcohol out from under
components.
11. Insert the battery and turn it on!
One switch is ON/OFF, the other is
BLINK/SOLID. In the above photo in
step 9, the ON/OFF switch is on the
left and in the OFF position. The
BLINK/SOLID switch is on the bottom
right and is in the BLINK position.
Insert the battery, positive side
facing up. Turn the ON/OFF switch
to ON. If you've done everything
right, your LEDs should blink in about
a twice per second heartbeat-style
pattern!
ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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12. Troubleshooting
One of the LEDs don't light up:
•Check the direction of your LEDs!
Did you solder them on in the proper
orientation? If you need to change
the direction of an LED, you can do
this without damaging the LED if
you're careful. Put your soldering
iron to the side of the LED and add a
bunch of solder until it blobs and
touches both ends of the LED, and
gently wipe the LED right off the
board. If your LED is still on the
solder blob on the tip of your iron,
immediately whack the palm of your
hand holding the iron against the
table. This will cause the solder and
the LED to drop off the tip, onto your
table. Gently wipe most of the
excess off of your LED and try again!
We also give you an extra LED.
All of the LEDs don't light up:
•Check the direction of your LEDs per
above.
•Check the direction of your battery.
•Check the direction of your 555
timer chips.
•Check the direction of your mini-
MELF diodes.
The LEDs blink, but in a weird/wrong
pattern:
•First, take your battery out and make
sure your circuit board is clean, per
the above step. Try it again. If it still
is weird, go onto the following steps.
•The first one minute may in fact have
a slightly different pattern, there can
be a small "break-in" period. (It's an
interesting effect due the initial
voltage & internal resistance of a
fresh battery). Just wait and see if it
changes.
•Check the direction of your timer
chips and mini-MELF diodes.
Check your resistors for the correct
values in the correct places. You can
look at the numbers written on top
under magnification, and you can
also turn the circuit OFF, and
measure each one's resistance with a
multi-meter.
•Check your capacitors for the correct
values in the correct places. The two
most important ones are the 2.2uF
C4 and the 10uF C1. There's a
difference in the sizes of those
capacitors, C1 should be the
biggest/tallest one on the board. C4
should be the second biggest.
Double-check the assembly drawing.
You can also measure the
capacitance in-circuit if you have a
multimeter, but note you'll get
slightly different values than "ideal"
out-of-circuit values. You should still
be able to verify that they're in the
correct positions.
ASC-0001
San Luis Obispo, CA
Irreverent Electronics That Spark Delight!
www.alpenglowindustries.com
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
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CONNECT WITH US!
We love to see what you do with our products!
Tag us in your posts and use #AlpenglowInd or
#alpenglowindustries.
Instagram: @AlpenglowInd
YouTube: Alpenglow Industries
Email: info@alpenglowindustries.com
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