Gikfun FM Radio Kit Soldering Practice Kit DIY School Project FM 87-108MHz with 2 Power Supply Modes, Soldering Learning and Teaching for Beginners, Adults EK1989

The Gikfun FM Radio Kit is a fun, hands-on soldering project for beginners and hobbyists. The instructions are clear, and it’s rewarding to build a working FM radio. However, patience is required for tiny components, and sound quality is basic. Great for learning and practicing soldering skills.

Having bought and assembled a lot of Chinese kits I was pleasantly surprised with this one , not only were there no parts missing but there were actually spares for some parts which are easily lost.Unlike most Chinese kits this one comes with a pictorial instruction sheet which although having quite small pictures and text I found to be useful, should the size bother you there is an online version accessed by scanning a Q.R code.I would suggest that unless you have young eyes a magnifier is almost essential for soldering the surface mount parts and I do not think that this would be a good first project because of the surface mount parts.Having said this the p.c.b is of excellent quality and providing you exercise patience it all solders together very well.Once assembled and in it's case the radio performs very well, the sound is a little tinny with the supplied speaker which is very small, but this is to be expected, when listening on headphones however the sound is really very good.The radio does seem to be sensitive to headphones resistance in that it worked fine with full sized headphones with a 60 ohm resistance but attempting to use 32 ohm earbuds caused it to malfunction.There is a problem with powering from batteries because it will only work for a short time before the voltage drops to a point where the unit malfunctions, this can be solved by using 1.5 volt re-chargeable lithium ion batteries as these contain an internal voltage regulator which maintains the output at 1.5 volts .Whilst looking into the battery issue I found a power saving feature which appears to be undocumented, if the volume up and down buttons are pressed simultaneously the display will show an H or an L alternately.While in H mode the display is always on whereas while in L mode the display will turn off after a few seconds thus saving power.All in all this is a very good kit and I can recommend it.

Really nice kit, well made but lacking proper instructions. A beginner would probably find this hard at first, but if you take your time and just look at the circuit board markings you should be ok. You will need a decent soldering iron with a very small tip, and a flux pen. The main IC socket on mine had issues with the pins, basically they fell out, so I soldered the IC straight onto the PCB. Worked fine. Apart from the awful speaker the radio is great. headphones or an external speaker make it a really good sounding unit.

Better if bigger and no surface soldering, instructions are hard work.I’m a beginner but knowledgeable about the process, I found it difficult and fiddly

A good project to do with a lot of patience

This is unbelievably bad. The instructions are in Chinese with a partial,l comically bad interpretation. The guidance photos are beyond a joke and tiny and out of focus. Why Amazon would allow such C**P to be sold through their platform is beyond me. Dont disappoint someone like I did with this as a gift, or save yourself the trouble and burn the cash

Men love it. Quite complicated, required some skills.

Bought as birthday present for my son, kit is well thought out and neat, board is good quality and component layout is clear. It should be noted that there is some surface mount soldering needed in a couple of IC's which requires drag soldering. Something that might be a little beyond the general hobbyist.