I have to apologize up front, when I began construction, the 20 or so components were in a bag along with the PCB and did not have any of the material that Dave Ek put together. Because I had built tons of projects I never even thought that the order that I constructed it in was not the same order that Dave Ek documents it in on his excellent website. I highly encourage you to review the material on Dave Ek's Website, my personal apologies to Dave Ek, I had hoped that this would supplement his instructions but, we construct the board in a different order. I am not sure that he had a specific reason for starting with the DIP's or that I had a specific reason to begin with the resistors. (actually it was subconscious I did the 12 resistors first because I could just stick all 12 in and flip the board over and solder the resistors without any falling out because the resistors would be held in by the board laying on top of it, had I done the DIP's first they resistors may have fallen out a ways although I did bend the leads outwards on all of them anyway so they would not have slipped out turning it over, but, as a matter of habit I start with the lowest profile components first so when I flip the board over nothing falls out)

I placed all the resistors (except for the optional hairpin mounted R13). I just stuck them all thru the circuit board making sure they were all the same direction (does not matter if they are upside down but, it looks nicer).

12 resistors at this point count'em



Bottom of the board, if you bend the leads a little the components will stay secure. In this photo they are not bent, since these are the first components soldered on the flat board gravity keeps them from sliding out when the board is upside down. Had I soldered the DIP's in first some may have slipped in a non-uniform fashion as far as the DIP's had stuck out.



Solder the Diode in D1, this must be aligned in the correct direction, on the diode is a silver band and the silver band must be aligned with the line on the topside of the silk screened circuit board that represents that band on the diode. If you have any doubts look at the photo. The band on the diode faces the resistors that have already been soldered in the previous photo. Current will only flow in one direction thru this diode. It prevents you from hooking up the power to the board in reverse (I am sure this never happens in the dark). If it's not in the correct orientation the board will not work and the LED (latter) will not light up.



Two of the electrolytic capacitors(C1, C4, C5, C6, C7) shown here to demonstrate polarity;



Notice the white band with the '-' on it, this indicates that that lead is the '-' side of the capacitor. The silkscreen board from FAR Circuits has the '+' on it so put align the other lead to the '+' side (photo's below).



The capacitors are aligned the way they need to be, note that some go in one direction some in the other, carefully look at the silkscreen (or schematic) in order to make sure they are all aligned with the correct polarity. Also notice in this shot you can see the line under to diode (D1) is under the white band on the black diode.

Toss on the two other capacitors(C2, C3), orientation does not matter.



Sockets. Align the board, and sockets as shown. (do not remove the IC's/Chips from the black foam at this time, they are very sensitive and a small shock could render them un-useable).



If you look carefully I have placed 6 red circles in the photo;

On the silkscreen the side with pin 1 of the IC's are notched.
On the DIP sockets the side with pin 1 is notched.
On the IC's the side with pin 1 is notched.

If your facing the DIP socket, the silk screened PC Board, or the IC and the notch is on the left hand side, PIN 1 is on the lower left. You begin counting pins from the lower left to the lower right, the continue counting on the upper right to the upper left. On a 16 pin IC PIN 1 is on the lower left in the photo and pin 16 is in the upper left.

The important part here is that you solder the socket (without the IC in it) with the notches aligned. Later when everything is all done the important part is that when you place the IC's in the socket the notch on the IC aligns with the notch on the socket but, placing the IC's in the sockets is one of the last steps you want to do. Solder the DIP sockets to the board. Your board should look like this;



Going fast? Here's what we have left.



Now solder in the power regulator, it looks like this.



I actually had to look at the data sheet but, noted that Dave Ek, had the answer on his website after the fact. It should be aligned like this;



The crystal is next, notice that all the corners have rounded edges except for one. The square edge is Pin 1, align Pin 1 on the crystal to Pin 1 on the PCB and solder the 4 pins.



This is how it should look at this point.



Okay the LED and R13. The LED is a little like a diode it will only allow current flow thru in one direction. On the base of the LED it sticks out a little bit. It's mostly round except for one small side (it was difficult to capture);



This notch aligns to the notch on the circuit board.



Allot is going on in the above photo, but, I placed a thick blue line along where the straight part of the diode goes in the circuit board. (see below)

Additionally, you see the last resistor R13, the pins have been bent in a hairpin fashion. I have placed a red box around where R13 is located just to the right is a larger circle along with a drill hole, the resistor gets mounted into the larger hole, and the other pin goes in the smaller hole. Solder R13 first then then the LED (the LED goes within the green box in the photo, the straight side of the LED aligns with the BLUE thick line in the photo).

Your board should now look like this.