I was tempted to shrink wrap from one end only, but then thought about loosing out on the compressive effect that the tubing has as it slightly shrinks end to end, of which there is little.
I ran into a trapped air bubble in the middle. The darn stuff was so tight against the ends that as I approached the middle, there wasn't enough leakage around the two end cores to let the air out. A slight slice in the bubble in the middle and it came together very well. The 2 mm or so puncture 'healed' with the shrinking much to my relief.
I just finished the amplifier board yesterday. Very enjoyable AFTER I got a soldering tip and iron that allowed me to make good contact. Even in this 100,000 population town, the only irons I could find were are Radio Shack and they looked like they were sized to do plumbing.
The controller board is slated to start today if I can get home from work early enough. I'm still worried about the GPS chip, but the rest of it should be a piece of cake with the experience I learned from the first board.
Sorry to dribble on about the lessons learned, but really bright light helps, and I appropriated my wife's stitchery ring light with magnifying lens in the middle to help out, even with illumination while a high power set of reading glasses (I did find some 3.5 diopter) and a head mounted stereo pair of lenses gave me more confidence.
The surface mount chips went surprisingly well. I understand that for someone doing a lot of recent soldering, it would be no problem. But, because of the access to the board without other components nearby necessitating the SMD installation right away, it means you are learning your soldering skills of years past on the most touchy part, with no recent experience or confidence. I almost, almost, look forward to doing the next System Blue evolution board, or whatever it will be called. Sort of fun.
The hardest thing to do, the micro USB connector. The part in my kit had solder leads barely to the surface of the back side of the board, and to get heat to those pins and not just form a solder blob in the micro hole was a bit tough. I wish the would have been a wee bit longer and stuck up through the board to have a physical contact with my iron to heat it.
But, to my delight, surprise and relief, at 10:30 last night after numerous rechecks under the bright light and magnification, I plugged it in and lights blinked, the reset button worked and I could vary the number of yellow LEDs lit by moving the potentiometer.
Oh, a plug for the step by step instructions that have been provided by another member, and I sincerely apologize for not having those notes with me as I type this; I cannot say enough about how WONDERFUL that effort is for the construction of these boards! A difficult document to produce, and so far has been flawless, a great hand holder, and for those of us cautious and a little worried, it has been a great boon to my organization, making sure that things go on in the right order and no missteps along the way. Marvelous. A fantastic contribution to the project, and I'm sure that those who may choose to not embark on setting up their own station would do well and finish with this document. That said, if you've never soldered nor have the space to set up a work area to do this assembly with proper light and magnification, you still might see if there is a youthful pair of eyes connected to a body that works on electronics and all, to help you with this.
And, get a very nice pair of flush cutting, side style (CG Electronics has a nice one for about $5) nippers to take the leads off after soldering.
Can you tell I'm excited? Go, builders!
