Quality SMT practice kit for those who like to dive right in
For SMT Garden
The kit provides exercise with a number of different component types and sizes. I found the dedicated solder practice areas on the back of the board (and the extra components provided for these) useful. There's clear and detailed online (only) instructions, including general advice on surface-mount soldering. I'm a "Tacking" guy myself. Plenty of annotated photos showing you what you're dealing with. The end result is reasonably pretty and customizable, perhaps slighty on the too-bright and flickery side. My biggest gripe is that the PCB holes are way too large for the standoff screws, which makes attaching the standoffs kinda annoying.
I personally think this is a very nice kit in the "My First SMT Project" category. However, I can imagine that some people would want to start with something more step-by-step. With the board divided into numbered "stations" (corresponding to online lessons/exercises) that can be completed and tested individually, for example. The SMT Garden requires you to do a relatively large amount of work without too many mistakes to obtain a working device, and that might end up being discouraging.
International delivery was speedy and trackable (the order was placed on a Sunday and shipped the next day). The two kits I bought arrived complete, neatly packaged and in good condition (AFAICT, only having assembled one of them), with bonus tweezers and Alpenglow sticker included.
(NOTE: There wasn't really any "Communication" involved (I just placed my order and the products arrived), but Tindie is making me rate it anyway, so I chose "Good" as a default rating.)
