[pete.d]

I just wanted to add a note to this thread, since it helped me quickly track down the problem in my own kit’s assembly. Diagnostic steps guided by the above very helpful info from Windell include:

1. Two red LEDs fail to light properly; when they are supposed to light up, seemingly random other LEDs on all rings light instead. See “the current that would normally go through them needs to go *somewhere,*”.
2. Using the diode test setting on my multimeter, worked my way back from the LED itself (either one of the pair that didn’t work) until I found a point on the circuit where the LED didn’t light up when probed.
3. Looked more carefully at the solder joint just past the probe point in the direction of the LED (the point at which the 0 ohm jumper connects to the red PCB), found that it had been done poorly, with the jumper lead still mobile in the through-hole of the PCB.

Redid that solder point, and voila, the clock works perfectly!

By the way, thanks so much for doing such a great job with this kit. The instructions were awesome, incredibly easy to follow, with plenty of good photos and important tips that made everything so simple to do. And of course, the clock is a real treat itself once assembled.

One minor suggestion: the instructions I got seemed a little out of date with respect to the Chronodot, in that those instructions described a tabbed battery that had to be soldered into place, and headers that had to be soldered to the Chronodot board, while the part I got was much easier: it had a regular slide-in battery holder already soldered to the board, and the headers were already soldered as well. If these welcome improvements to the kit are going to be standard issue going forward, it might be a good idea to update the instructions to match. I didn’t find it that confusing, and I suppose most people wouldn’t, but you never know. It was a notable contrast to the rest of the instructions which are so good at providing every little detail needed to assemble the kit successfully.

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