Velleman MK127 Microbug

This was the smaller of the two Velleman "bugs" I got as little projects to share with grandkids. This one had less and easier soldering. As with the other one I had mechanical problems with motor mounting, and also with soldering to the motor terminals. The motors are pretty impressive, but it looks like I damaged one - maybe too much heat? I'll probably buy another and give it another try.

I've done a number of this little soldering kits and usually there is an issue with at least 1 solder pad coming up off the board. This was no exception. One of the pads for one of the LEDs came off so the LED didn't work. This was resolved by scratching the board with a sharp object and exposing the trace to solder directly to it. I've come to expect that now with these kits. However, there are other issues I had with this kit.1. My microbug runs backwards because the vendor marked the NEGATIVE ends of the motor with red, but red is universally supposed to represent positive.2. The instructions call for you to take a file and scrape the sides of the motors, slide them in at angle (you have to guess the angle) and apply solder to the sides of the motor to keep them in place. Forget that nonsense - I whipped out the hot glue gun.In the end, it is an amusing little project but considering it took way longer to assemble than it should have, I would pass on this one.

I had a great time working with my two 9 year-old grandchildren on a pair of these kits. They were able to follow the picture-heavy instructions and assemble and solder the bot. My grandson even got to learn his, '...you've got to pay attention when you're soldering' lesson - fortunately, not too badly. The total time we spent working was two to three hours and bot bots worked the first time we powered them up.One tip: the instructions would have you solder the motors to the board and then install a pair of jumpers from each to the board. I found it difficult to hold the motors in place to solder them. If you solder the jumpers to the motors first, they help hold the motors in place for soldering.

My kid really likes it.It's a kit and you need to assemble and solder the parts.The assembly instructions located on a folded paper backing of the package.Minus one star for not including schematics into the instructions (duh!), I had to go to Velleman website and download PDF.

It took me a minute or two to realize the difference between a couple of the components, (very small stamps on the transistors), but everything went together great in the end. I'm not very skilled with soldering yet and bought this as a practice project. It took me a little under and hour altogether to assemble. Once it was completed everything worked fine. Once you get the sensitivity set you can have a lot of fun making it chase the light from a flashlight or laser pointer. All in all very pleased.

CAUTION. My motors were not marked with "+" stamp on the positive terminals. They were marked with a red painted dot. However, on the Velleman website, they explain that the red dot is on the NEGATIVE motor connection. This is very confusing, and the boxed instructions do not mention it.https://www.vellemanusa.com/products/view/?country=us&lang=enu&id=351131The kit went together easily and everything works.

Easy to build and a lot fun when its done

This was fun to put together and worked great. The kids loved it!

Having read good reviews, and noted that the instructions had been updated to include the new motor polarity identification, it was disappointing to find that the quality of the pcb was not as expected. Two of the solder pads for the light dependant resistors were not fixed fully to the board. Additional wires retrieved the situation but shouldn’t have been needed. Otherwise the kit was fine, instructions were good and the bug worked as described.

after the solder points lifted off when assembling the first I then bought a second but this was also no good.

Just goes round in circles no matter what.

Great

Brilliant.