The lighting build continues, slowly, as I grab an hour here and there to solder. I don't
think I've screwed anything up too bad -- all eight breakout boards are all assembled, and the LED strings are lighting up as they should as I finish soldering each one. At this point, though, I only have four strings wired up on one of the 48" heat sinks. Each 48" heat sink will have 12 strings, and each 24" heat sink (which finally arrived via UPS today) will have 10. So, not counting the PCB assembly, I've got about 9% of my soldering done.
Some things I've learned along the way:
- Molten solder is hot
- Molten solder sometimes goes flying into the air for no reason
- Eye protection is a good idea when soldering
- The surface of your eyeball doesn't have any nerve endings (thankfully)
In other news, My Reef Creations (MRC) doesn't provide final design schematics for review and approval. They will, however, talk through your design over the phone to confirm it, so if you can foresee any unforeseen problems with the design at that phase, they can't ensure they get corrected. :-/
Time for a leap of faith, and to hope I designed my glass box well.
