Function Generator DIY KIT by JYE Tech FG085

Let's not fool ourselves - this isn't a top-of-the-line signal generator, but for general-purpose hobbyist use it is perfectly fine, and the price point is excellent. It took a couple of hours to put together, and worked first time. The printed instructions area little sparse in detail, but were more than enough for me to build without problems. A couple of pieces of advice: The alignment of the pushbutton switches is critical. there is a surprisingly tight fit of the front panel over the switches. Due to my sloppy soldering of one switch, I had to take my Dremel to the panel hole. Also, power up the unit before fitting the back plate, as you will need to adjust the contrast of the LCD display using the small preset, which will be covered by the back panel.

The kit was easy to build and worked well initially. After several months the operation became unstable. It was impossible to select the function. I searched for bad solder joint and was not able to resolve the problem. Now looking for another signal generator which is better quality. I would not recommend this product.

Documentation is a complete fail. This kit reminds me of the saying "Buy once, cry once". I was evaluating various hobby-level function generators in the $250-$500 price range. I came across this kit and figured "gee, if it's only $50 bucks, what can go wrong?" My instincts told me, don't buy it, my greediness won out. I really don't know if the thing works well or not. I started putting it together following the instructions as best I could. However, there is an "Important Notice" about the switches that is *NOT* in line with the assembly instructions warning you that the push button switches only go in one way. I totally missed this. Sadly, I soldered in around 25 switches, luck would have all but about 5 were backwards. Ever tried to unsolder 300 pins? Well, let's just say I'm not even going to try, I'm just throwing the board away and will resume looking for a decent function generator. I realize the engineer who wrote the assembly instructions is probably not a native speaker. But something important like this needs a *MUCH* bigger warning. Also, isn't there *some* other part that will do the same function as these push buttons that is polarized and not possible to put in backwards? This is an epic design fail; these parts might be okay for a production line, but not for one-off kits. I realize this is my own fault for not reading the assembly instructions as closely as I needed to before soldering down those switches. However, if you find yourself mesmerized by the low price, be sure to read the assembly instructions over three or four times before soldering anything in place. Also, make sure you have a very thin point soldering iron and high-gauge solder. The pins are small and very close together. You're best advised to use a magnifying glass while working on the switches and check for solder bridges (that seem to form quite easily on the switch terminals).

I needed an inexpensive function generator just for playing around with electronics. "Real" lab grade ones cost several hundreds of dollars so I decided to purchase this one in light of good reviews elsewhere. The first one came in a padded envelope with all of the parts in a ziplock bag. No padding = a cracked inductor and a returned package. The second one was in the same type of packaging but undamaged. It took exactly 1 hour to put the kit together Right. Take your time with the buttons! Yes, there are a lot of them and they are polarized with 6 legs each! They install with the two "teeth" facing towards the BNC socket, the manual doesn't show it clearly. I recommend putting the male brass standoffs with the screws into the face plate first. Then install one button at a time and use a little sticky tack to hold it in place. Use the front face plate to align the buttons! Take your time and solder one leg in. That way if you mess up, it is easy to move a switch over a little. Once you have them all tacked in, screw the front face plate in, check the button for smoothness and then solder them in. I did the capacitors next, a few of them go behind the LCD- if you do the LCD first it will be impossible to solder the caps in! I did the caps after the buttons because a few of the button pins comes close to the caps. After I had it together, it powered up fine. The manual and menus are kinda intuitive. It takes a few minutes to understand what does what. One thing that did not stand out was that the HZ/V/sec/uS and KHz/mV/mS buttons act as enter buttons for some menus. Once I had it figured out, it is pretty easy to work with. The actual waveforms are pretty darn good for a $46 kit using a couple of micro controllers. I can't complain at all! It will be more than adequate for my purposes. However, if you were intending to use it for more serious projects such as HAM, you may want a real function generator. The servo output is also very useful but DO NOT WIRE IT UP DIRECTLY TO A SERVO! Mine had center pin as signal and the outer pins as 15v and ground. In other words, you will fry any servo you attach! You need a voltage regulator to drop it down to 5v! Going from 15 to 5v is quite a jump, I would recommend using a switching BEC to drop that down with minimum heat. (A 7805 would get a little toasty probably) Be sure to solder a servo extension to the right pins and with regulated voltage before trying that function out. For a few bucks more, JYE could have completed that feature. It really feels half baked on the hardware side but the software side is great. Overall, this was a fun and useful kit. I recommend it for anyone in the electronics hobby or those who are curious Edit: Mine came with firmware 08501-130 which enables a lot of cool features such as user generated waveforms from a computer, sweep mode, and a trigger input function!