The photo's for this post are under 'Graham's' in the photo section.

The Courtiestown kit is very good, it arrived somewhat scantly
packaged for a 12,000 mile trip but nevertheless intact. All the
parts were there but in some cases the component part numbers did not
match the build notes or the alternate part numbers.

I spent quite some time with my magnifying hat on looking up the
supplid part number and making sure I knew which bits were which. I
then labeled every non-obvious component and even checked the values
of some of the resistors ('cos there's a couple of little errors in
the buid notes relating to values and colours). So I would say that a
good magnifying glass or visor and a strong light are essential.

The PCB although quite densely populated is of good quality and the
masking makes soldering to the pads quite easy despite their size.

One of the first jobs is to drill out the holes for the terminal
posts which then have to be soldered in. My 25 watt iron would take
all day for this job so I used a baby butane iron to flow solder
around the screws.

There are a couple of things that I would have done differently. I
should have also drilled out the holes for the PCB supports to 6 mm
or so. In the end I had to use 4 mm screws and a bunch of nuts to
make the board support 'cos the nylon standoffs that I have were too
big to fit the board. Also the board could really do with more than
to places to fit supports. The other thing is that I should have put
connectors on to the PCB for the LEDs rather than soldering what
would inevitably be too short leads directly to the PCB.

The build notes suggest arranging the thermistor up high in the
airflow above the board. If you do this you will need some heat
shrink or improvised sleeving.

I used kill-the-planet-now lead solder which I would personally
recommend over ROHS compliant solder and every joint was good first
time (it's a nice PCB particularly in that respect). I figured that
finding a bad joint once the whole thing was done would be bad so I
checked everything as I assembled it. This paid off because it worked
first time.

You will need to think a bit about what you are going to use as cable
from the PCB to your batteries. Everone says that fat and short is
good so I decided to use the cables from a broken jump start box. I
soldered the cables on to washers but to make them fit on to the PCB
it was necessary to grind then into a semi square shape. You could
just buy proper fat cable connector but they wouldn't fit either
without some filing.

In the Courtiestown site notes they mention leaving the battery
connected to a trickle charger while running. I scored a cheap 3 amp
adjustable supply from Trade Me (New Zealand's own e-bay). Rick was
(I think rightly) rather dismissive of this configuration and
suggested that a current limiter was what was called for so I made
one with an LM317T and a 4.7 ohm wire wound resistor, I couldn't
resist adding a fancy LED (and resistor).

I had a cheap Sunbeam Tech 120mm PC fan and grill surplus from a PC
modding project so what the hell.

An illuminated push/pull switch from Supercheap Auto connects the
battery to the power supply at 13.8 volts at say a quarter amp.

All in all a very good experience. Just have to see what happens now.

All the Best

g2