How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love To Solder
Welcome, proud owner (or cunning voyeur) of a Nodeblinky. It will take you between an hour and two hours to solder your blinky.
YOU WILL NEED:
A soldering iron. Any iron will work, though a smaller tip will work better. If you have a big battleship style soldering iron, you may want to hit the local Radio Shack and find a smaller tip.
A wet sponge to clean your soldering iron with.
Some solder. Just about any solder, including osin-core or silver-bearing, will work just fine. Do not use acid-core solder.
A nippy cutter to trim leads with. A pair of dykes will work but not as well.
RECOMMENDED:
Solder braid in case you make an error.
A magnifying glass to check your work with.
A clean, well lit working space away from cats.
The process of assembling your blinky kit consists of three things that you will do over and over again. They are:
STUFFING parts into holes in the circuit board
SOLDERING those parts into the circuit board
CLIPPING the leads that stick out
HOW TO STUFF
Place your part through the holes in the board. Make sure it is pressed flat against the circuit board. You may need to bend the leads out so it does not fall out when you turn the board over. You can also use a piece of cardboard or anything else flat and stiff to hold parts in place when you turn the board over.
HOW TO SOLDER
Soldering isn't hard to get the hang of. The key thing to remember is to heat the joint, not the solder.
First, make sure your iron is tinned. This is done by melting a bit of solder onto the tip of the iron and wiping it on the sponge. It should be shiny and silver. If you cannot get the tip of your soldering iron to become shiny and silver, you may need a new tip.
Hold your iron on the pad (the shiny part of the circuit board) where the lead comes through. Hold it there for a few seconds to heat the joint up. Then, when it's good and hot, touch the solder lightly to the joint. You don't need to use a lot of solder to make a good connection. Your solder joint should look like a tapered volcano. If it looks like a volcano with straight edges, that's OK, but you can use less solder. If it looks like a ball, you are using too much solder and you may not be getting the joint hot enough.
This is what the process looks like. Notice that the solder is not touching the tip of the iron. It is melting in the joint.
Here is a picture of some well-soldered pins.
HOW TO CLIP:
Use your nippy cutter or dykes to clip the leads off the board after you've soldered them. Clip them just above the solder joint - do not force your cutter to be absolutely flush with the board and clip the entire solder joint off.
OK, on to assembling your blinky. You will want the contents of your kit sorted out in front of you.
A NOTE ON ASSEMBLING:
The front side of the blinky has the round pattern with the dots on it, and the bottom side has outlines of circuit parts. All parts except for the LEDs and buttons should be stuffed into the back side of the board. WARNING: THE BLINKY WILL NOT WORK IF YOU STUFF THEM IN THE FRONT SIDE.
STEP 1: THE CHIPS 
Stuff the three ICs into the back side of the board. Two of these ICs are the same, and one is slightly larger with darker text on it. The larger IC is the Atmel Mega168 microcontroller. It is the brains behind the operation. It goes in the space labeled IC1. You will notice that there is a notch in the chip. Also, you may notice a suspicious-looking notch in the outline of the chip on the back of the board. Yes, you should line up the notch in the chip with the notch on the board. If you do not, the blinky WILL NOT WORK. You will see 'IC1' next to that chip.
The other two ICs go in the spaces labeled IC2 and IC3. They too must have their notches lined up.
You may find that the pins of the ICs are a little too wide to fit in the holes. To fix this, place the chip on its side on a flat hard surface. Place your thumbs over the pins on the other side. Squeeze evenly and gently until you feel the pins bend inward just a little. Do not squeeze too hard and over-bend the pins. If you do, you can carefully bend them back with a pliers.
When you have stuffed the ICs, turn the board over and solder them in. You do not need to clip the leads of the ICs as they are already short.
STEP 2: RESISTORS, CAPACITORS, AND CRYSTAL (no not that crystal) 
You will see two different types of resistors and two different types of small capacitors in front of you. There are two different values of each of these. The values are labeled on the tape holding them together. Stuff them into the board, in the same direction as the outline, in the following places:
.1 uf capacitor: C1, C4
22pf capacitor: C2, C5
1K resistor: R1, R2
10K resistor: R3, R4, R5
Do not worry about the orientation of these parts.
If you get the capacitors or resistors mixed up, fear not. The .1uf capacitors have '104' printed on them in tiny letters, and the 22pf capacitors have '22J'. The 10K resistors have brown, black, orange, and gold bands. The 1K resistors have brown, black, red, and gold bands.
You may need to bend the legs of these parts to keep them from sliding out when you flip the board.
While you're at it, put the crystal (metal and shiny) into Q1.
Then turn the board over, solder the parts in, and clip the leads.
My board doesn't have the crystal soldered in yet. But it will! Also, don't worry that R5 is bigger than the others. I just have some mutant resistors in my studio.
STEP 3: THE LEDS 
You're getting close! Next up are the most important parts of any blinky. The LEDs should be stuff into the front side of the board, with the dots on it. You can put any color LED in any of the positions. This is the important thing to remember: LEDs have two leads coming out of them. One is longer than the other. THE LONG LEAD GOES IN THE CIRCULAR PAD. Yes, one more time: THE LONG LEAD GOES IN THE CIRCLE. NOT THE SQUARE!
Be careful when flipping the board that the LEDs don't slide out. Try to keep them from getting soldered in at an angle. A slightly intermediate-level fix for a crooked LED is reheating both the pads at once and pushing the LED in with your other hand, while holding the board up.
When your board looks like this, clip the LEDs. Or clip them as you go along to open up room to solder more easily.
STEP 4: EVERYTHING ELSE 
Next up are the buttons. They go in the front of the board about halfway down. They are not labeled, but you should be able to find the holes. They stick in really well. You don't have to clip their leads.
Next up is the switch. It likes to fall out, so you may want to grab a piece of cardboard or a book and hold it against the switch and the board as you turn it over.
Next up, you will stuff the polarized capacitor. It is important that you get its orientation right, or it will fail. The long lead is closer to the voltage regulator next to it. This puts the grey stripe facing the mounting hole drilled at the top of the board.
Also stuff the voltage regulator at this time. Align the silver backing of the part with the white line on the circuit board. Be careful while soldering it as the pads are closer together than on most of the other components.
Last up is the battery holder. It goes in through the back. Make sure to get a good solder joint on it. There is a lot of copper on the ground connection which sucks the heat away, so be patient.
Stick in a battery, turn it on, and you should be blinking!
