XBee Adapter Kit PDQ

Just got done building an XBee Adapter and tested it in 34 minutes. That's right, 2040 seconds. Or 0.566666667 hours. Either way, it's PDQ.

I'm a soldering novice. I've been burning my finger tips for some years now but in limited batches so I'm in no way claiming any skill. (Actually, I'm claiming a lack of skill) And I wasn't speeding, I was in no rush to build this thing.

I opened the mail and snapped that there picture over there. Plugged in my soldering iron and started to look through the adapter pieces as it warmed up.

I built one of these last year so I knew the routine. They're so dirt simple, I didn't even have to look over adafruit's instructions this time. I just glanced at my other adapter to see which resistor was which. Everything else is a no-brainer to fit onto the board.

I did a few things different this time though. Since I don't have a PCB vice, I'm stuck with having the board laying flat on my bench. So I soldered in the 74125 buffer first, the female header sockets next, all the other pieces, and the male header pins last. Your mileage may vary, it was just simpler for me in that order.

So if I already have one of these (and a XBee Shield and a XBee Explorer), what the heck am I doing building another?

Now that I have a workable tweet-a-w/e, I need more XBees "whatevers".

I'm planning to have temperature sensor to tweet swimming pool data. So I need another XBee and an XBee Adapter.

I'm planning to use Sparkfun's Nike+ receiver in a Serial Adapter connected to an Arduino and start tweeting stalker data. So I need another XBee and an XBee Adapter.

I'm planning to hook up various ADC things to an Xbee and start tweeting real data. So I need another XBee and an XBee Adapter.

Get the point? I need more XBees and XBee adapter kits. Unfortunately the boss doesn't understand, so I will need to get these one or two at a time.

I finished soldering, slapped in an XBee and ran a test script that tweeted a tid bit to twitter. I knew I was making good progress but only noticed how fast after I snapped a second picture, and saw the timestamp. 34 minutes. I can't even make minute rice in 34 minutes.