I have now assembled the first board: the PSU board. All components installed except the power LEDs which I’m currently thinking may be best mounted on the front panel. Whilst taking it steady and double checking the value and orientation of each component as it is installed and soldered,the build time for this board was about 90 minutes.

Have also finished assembling the floor standing rack, next job is to paint it.

I’ve treated myself to a new soldering station which has just this second been delivered by the UPS guy as I’m typing this… the iron I’ve been using is quite possibly older than you! (Seriously, it’s an old Antex XS, probably about 28 years old!) I thought I’d wait for the new iron to turn up before building the rest of the boards as the old Antex was a bit too large for the fine soldering around the small pads on the FiveFish PCBs.

I have been working on the new rack which has now been painted and rack strips installed so that it’s ready and fully installed before the FiveFish 1U unit is completed… I’ll also be migrating a few other items into this rack.