VellemanK8055 USB Experiment Interface Board

So far, I hope it comes with all component. Have not done inventory.I bought it thinking it was a mounted . I will be very entertain for a time mounting this and soldering .I will say it will be a challenge.

Well put together kit. Everything was nicely organized. Still, if I had to do it over again I would pay the extra few dollars for the assembled unit. Yes it would save several hours of tedious solidering, but it would also guarantee that you end up with a working unit.The board is pretty tough. I was so excited when I was nearing completion that I installed all the ICs in their sockets upsidedown. Soon after plugging it into a USB port I smelled something burning. I immediately unplugged it, flipped the ICs back in the right way and the thing still worked perfectly! If that wasn't enough, I tried connecting the PWM outputs to a test circuit in a way that caused too much current through the output transistors, and again, a burning smell after an audible "pop". Still, the board works perfectly!The bottom line is that if you are as dumb as me or just half as dumb, this board will roll with it.

This is a well designed board, we have undrinkable water here, full of red iron, I built a water filtration plant to remove the iron, and it has one main pump and 2 valves and 4 water level sensors, with this board and a windows computer it will run the waterplant and keep us in clean usable water since 2004, this is board number 4, I like to have spairs for just in case, this new board will be interface with a raspberry pi 3 to run the waterplant.

A bit old now, but it works well

Perfect.It is a DIY kit.The system work nice and we replaced a tlcontrollwr system by using the kit.

Works as advertised

Cool!

I bought this kit on sale, not realizing until I opened it that it was a kit. I had a very fun time soldering all the parts onto the printed circuit board (PCB) and powering it up. It took me about five hours from unpacking to power-up. I took my time and carefully inventoried the parts prior to assembly. I tested the resistors and diodes before soldering as well. Once done, it powered up and functioned perfectly using all the functions available in the demo program.The documentation is Spartan, but contains all the information needed to assemble the board. A beginner might have some issues figuring out what the manual is telling you to do, but not too much. The resistor chart and list showing the color bands to use was very helpful to make identification quick.I would take the manual's advice and mark off the resistors as you go. You cover up the resistor number on the PCB as you go. You could refer to a diagram; but it's just easier. I didn't bother marking off the other components as there weren't enough of them to confuse me.The PCB is laid out well and gives even a person inexperienced in soldering plenty of room without worrying about bridging a connection with solder inadvertently. The resistors were laid out on a paper tape strip in order, which was very helpful. I checked each one anyway, but didn't have to. I had two extra red LEDs and one extra rubber foot in my kit. Everything else was exactly as needed. I like the way the components were shown in the manual. They were illustrated very well to show the diode directions and DIP chip layouts. Even a beginner will have an easy time identifying the components without any confusion.I would highly recommend magnifying glasses. I have the flip up kind that slip over reading glasses. I flipped them down when soldering a joint and then back up when done. It was very useful for getting solid, neat, solder joints and reading the capacitor values printed on them. A magnifying glass on a stand should work equally as well. Of course, if you are still young enough to focus your eyes at six inches, you won't need magnification.I downloaded the demo software that turns on and off the LEDs and reads the potentiometers and switches on the board. It's an easy way to verify that everything is working on the board after assembly. There are two different versions on the Velleman web site, but not too hard to find. They have a page for the card that lists all the software and documentation available. You can use this card for just about any programming language and platform that supports USB. I even found a site that had some sample code for Python script; so I plan to test it with the Raspberry Pi computer. You can directly read data into Excel, or use your iPhone or Android device.There is no end to what you can do with this experimenter. You could use it in a laboratory for all sorts of data acquisition and to control external devices or use it to build a whole-house alarm system. It was easy to assemble, has lots of features, is well-documented, and just, plain, fun.