***See update at end of this description***

In this video, I cover all aspects of the Solarbotics "Paris Flyer" CarouSol kit, in which you can assemble a fun, retro-tech, Steampunk-able, solar-powered mini-Zeppelin which will 'fly' around the Eiffel Tower. The kit is partially a simple electronics "solder kit" and partially a sort of 'wood maze' assembly of laser-cut pressed hardboard (NOT regular wood).

I purchased this kit from Evil Mad Scientist in California, evilmadscientist.com.

Besides what is included in the kit, the builder will need a suitable electronics-type soldering iron, rosin-care soldering flux, a wire stripper capable of removing insulation from 30AWG wire, 'white glue' and optionally CA glue (super glue) with suitable accelerant, something like a small X-Acto knife, and a small Phillips-head screwdriver.

I ran into a snag while building this kit, since Solarbotics furnished an incorrect kind of capacitor in the bag of electronic parts; they supplied a 22uF capacitor when a 220mF (0.22F) 'supercapacitor' is required. Evil Mad Scientist was not able to help because the other kits they had on the shelf also had the same incorrect part in them. After waiting a week for Solarbotics to respond to phone messages and emails, I decided to source a different but suitable capacitor on my own, and selected the Kemet # FM0V224ZF (I bought from Digikey, their number 399-13104-ND), which fits the kit's circuit board well and works fine. I show my deliberations and experiments regarding this in this video; this is my "hack" of the kit.

*** After another delay, Solarbotics sent a new 0.22F supercapacitor, the kind that was supposed to be originally in the kit. I noticed that it was only rated for 2.5V, as opposed to the 3.5V part that I sourced on my own and showed in this video.***

Here is a time-directory of this video's contents:
00:00 Overview
08:38 Assembly part 1
11:46 Theory of circuit operation
20:39 Assembly part 2: Eiffel Tower
27:25 Capacitor issues and resulting delays
29:15 Capacitor hack part 1: Voltage rating?
32:18 Digression regarding the airship
34:04 Capacitor hack part 2: Circuit board assembly
37:56 Assembly part 3: Power station and wiring
41:20 First test of power/motor circuit
42:40 Assembly part 4: Power station & balance arm
49:14 Assembly part 5: Motor mounting & final wiring
52:05 Balancing
54:19 Tests under various lighting types and conditions