I have assembled the MK101 kit, and my LEDs just glow weakly and do not alternate. They just glow solid. I know I should be checking for shorts and bad solder jobs, but is there a particular component (transistor, capacitor) I should check first? Or is there no way to tell?
I’m pretty sure all the LEDs are ok - I checked them with a multimeter each time I placed one. The capacitor polarity is right. Is there a particular problem with the power source contact or the transistor that could cause this?
A stunning 90% of all returned kits feature assembly mistakes such as inverted components, bad solderings, forgotten solderings, solder shorts, wrong component values, intermittend contacts etc… so that is where you should start looking. Electronic components are very reliable and are rarely defective. The only parts you should consider replacing are the transistors.
Ok, I’ll keep looking. I did use my iron on a higher setting than I should have, so the kit could have been burned a bit. I had someone take a look at the diagram, and it was suggested that there was a short that excluded the transistor from the circuit. So far, no luck, though.
You’ve used the right resistors at the right places? Otherwise it is possible that this kit is oscillating at a frequency so high you can’t see which circuit of LED’s is on.