6/17/2017
XKITZ XAMP-M2
2
Unpacking Your Kit
Carefully unpack and take stock of the components in your kit. The electronic components are packed in 2 bags
labeled ‘Bag A’ and ‘Bag B’. See Table 1 for a complete listing of your components.
Assembly Instructions
It is very important that you read and understand all of the following instructions before you start your
assembly so that you don’t make any mistakes that might be difficult to recover from. The assembly should be
done in the order listed in Table 1 or you may have difficulty physically accessing components for soldering.
What you’ll need
Soldering iron with small or medium tip
Damp sponge for tip cleaning
Solder
Solder wick or solder sucker in case of solder bridging (stranded wire could substitute)
Small needle nose pliers.
Small wire cutters
Small straight screwdriver
Sharp knife
Magnifying glass to read the markings on the tiny components
General Assembly Guidelines
Take your time!!
Most mistakes are made when rushing through the assembly. Taking the time to
double check every step will pay off with a first-time functional device.
In cases where it is necessary to re-form the leads on components (such as resistors and diodes),
be very careful not to put stress where the lead enters the component itself. The physical
attachment of the lead to the component can sometimes be very fragile and the lead may break off
if too much force is applied. Reforming the leads can be done by gripping the lead with small
needle-nose pliers at the base of the component while bending the lead on the other side of the
pliers.
Use as little heat and solder as necessary to affix the components to the PCB (printed circuit
board). Many of the parts in this kit are temperature sensitive. Overheating may damage them.
Always clean the soldering iron tip on the damp sponge prior to every solder joint. Re-tin whenever
the tip gets a little dull. (tinning is the application of fresh solder to the tip of the iron until its
shiny, wipe excess on a damp sponge).
Inspect the solder joints. They should be shiny and smoothly connect the pad to the lead. A dull
looking joint may indicate it is ‘cold’, meaning that either the pad or the lead weren’t heated enough
to allow reliable connection. This could lead to erratic operation of the device. Re-flow the joint
again with the soldering iron, apply equal heat to both the pad and the lead, apply a little more
solder if needed to get a good shiny connection.
When clipping the excess leads of the through-hole parts, don’t try to clip too close to the PCB. Clip
just above the solder joint to avoid fracturing the solder joint, which could lead to device failure
sometime in the future.
Carefully inspect each solder joint to make sure you didn’t accidentally form a ‘solder bridge’, or
connect two adjacent pads together. Remove solder bridges by using solder wick or a solder sucker.
If the bridge is small you may be able to remove it by just reheating the joint and sliding the
soldering iron across the bridge. If not, see the next step.
If you need to remove solder from a hole (or a solder bridge) and you don’t have solder wick or a
solder sucker, you can use stripped stranded wire in place of solder wick. Place the stranded wire
across the hole and touch the soldering iron to the wire, above the hole. As the wire heats it will
melt the solder in the hole, and the melted solder will tend to wick up into the stranded wire. When
the wire fills up with solder, move a clean part of the wire over the hole and repeat until the hole is
clear of solder.