1/23/2026 7 AM - Made the schematic and converted to pcb

Ive made the schematic for the pcb shape im thinking a simple circle except im going to design it to look like the Ironman ARC Reactor I've placed the LED's and pins in the outer layer for easier access and Im going to add some detail Now and maybe change the shape differently and wire it up neatly.

I also will likely change the shape to be a bit more creative and unique probably before I wire it up atleast thats what Im aiming for because even with silkscreen details its still a circle and quite plain.

1/23/2026 10 PM - Made the PCB

Made the pcb as you can see its very cool looking and for my first ever pcb I really like it!
I added a ironman theme and a stark industries logo and added a arc reactor that ironman has
and top secret symbols my github name and github page etc.

2/20/2026 - Made the PCB

I first tried soldering on a practice board and I sucked I tried learning other ways

And then I tried finally soldering my pcb and my solders where horrible I only did 3 LEDs in about 25 minutes

Heres the back of the board:

So ye Thats sucked a LOT and then I decided to ditch that and do another pcb because I wasn’t sure that pcb would work properly and on my second one I did all the LEDs…
But the capacitor pad and thing broke when soldering so I threw away the capacitor and had to restart on another board

I also burned my finger

And then I decided to lock in and I had to desolder the capacitor because I messed that up the pins are so damn close but it works and I got my final end result I also had to somehow seperate the potentiometer

Heres the capacitor that I broke on my second pcb

And I have finally finished the thing I’m quite happy I learned soldering and also wasted a lot of time but ye I think it’s fine honestly I learned a LOT I’m gonna do a hackpad next
This took way longer than expected also I burned my sponge turns out I used the wrong one so I used a brass sponge thingy also I learned to tin my soldering tips!

2/27/2026 - Explanation

I decided to write a more detailed explanation lol:
So I first soldered 2 leds and a jumper wire on a universal board to get used to it turns out I was "painting" instead of actually properly soldering thats why it balled up so much
The same thing happened with the first PCB with 3 LEDS so I discountinued it because of the horrible soldering joints and I snapped a leg.

I started soldering kinda good on the second one I started getting used to it but after all the leds when I was soldering my capacitor the pins were close together so they joined and i broke a leg and a pad so i had to stop doing that aswell and burned my finger.

On my final PCB (third one) I had to get used to being very careful for the chips and the shift register thing so it took me a while + I had to try to scrape off solder and heat it up etc because i soldered 2 pins together in the chip and I did the same thing for the Capacitor again i broke a pin but not the pad so I just decided to go along with it and it worked!

PS: I also had to scrape of a bunch of other things cuz i bridged it and I cleaned up and resoldered a bunch of joints because they werent shiny and smooth and I was worried it wouldnt work
Also Uhh I dont have a image to attach for this cuz I dont need one so I will attach a donut!