Soldering

BeeHive boards use through-hole components so they can be hand-soldered with a basic kit and no prior experience. This page covers what you need and how to put a board together. If you've never soldered before, SparkFun's through-hole soldering tutorial is an excellent primer.

Tools

Links below are for reference — any equivalent brand works.

Soldering iron (a temperature-controlled iron or station is ideal)
Solder
Flush cutters
Solder wick (for desoldering mistakes)
An extractor fan / fume extraction
Helping hands or a board holder

Components

Most parts can be sourced through Kitspace, which reads a board's bill of materials directly. Typical BeeHive components:

Resistors

Use a resistor colour-band calculator to identify values. Common values across BeeHive boards:

Value	Bands
47 Ω	yellow · violet · black · gold
220 Ω	red · red · black · black · brown
560 Ω	green · blue · brown
1 kΩ	brown · black · red
4.7 kΩ	yellow · violet · black · brown
10 kΩ	brown · black · black · red

Connectors

2-, 3-, and 4-pin JST-PH connectors
Barrel jack connector
20-pin female headers (mainboard footprint)

Assembling a board

Get to know the board. Look over the component IDs printed on the sil screen and where each part goes before you start.
Work shortest-first. Solder the lowest-profile parts first (resistors, diodes), then taller ones (capacitors, connectors, headers). This keeps parts flat against the board while you flip it to solder.
Mind orientation. Polarised parts must go the right way round:
- Electrolytic capacitors — the stripe marks the negative leg.
- Diodes, ICs, transistors — match the marked pin/notch to the silk screen.
Check JST footprints — make sure each connector matches its outline before soldering; they only fit one way.
Inspect. Look for cold joints (dull, blobby) and bridges between pins; reflow or wick as needed.

Known issues

On the H-bridge driver and high-power switch array, some resistor footprints are currently a tight fit — too large for 1 kΩ, too small for 47 Ω parts.