[Elecraft] Surface Mount tech; Orion; and K2/100

[Brendan Minish]

At 19:51 07/01/2003 -0800, Dick Ballard wrote:
>I doubt if any Elecraft radio would ever be designed with SMD (Surface
>Mount Device) parts. Primary reason is that they are intended to be
>assembled by hobbyists with ordinary tools. Although SMD boards can be
>hand built, the appearance, quality, and reliability are seriously
>compromised unless special techniques are used.

I don't really expect Elecraft to make a SMT K2 kit soon  (more's the 
pity!) but I disagree with your argument, this is what puts most people off 
giving SMT a go. It's not actually that bad, sure soldering 88 pin chips is 
not for the faint hearted (so use sockets for the high pin count chips) and 
the smallest sizes are impractical (but not impossible) to work with.
The average ' neat' solderer with a decent fine tipped Iron will not find 
the larger SMT sizes any harder to deal with than leaded components.
Appearance, reliability and quality need not suffer, SMT can be very 
satisfying AND some components are only available SMT these days, I have 
even used DIP carriers so that I could use SMT replacements for DIP IC's 
that are no longer available to me in existing PCBs.

>  Just handling the
>components is a bear for the home hobbyist.

you need a good quality pair of fine point Stainless steel tweezers and 
perhaps something to help the eyes out but it's NOT a bear.

>  Repair and modification is
>also difficult.

? ? You can get special heat guns for un-soldering SMT but I just use a 
little butane torch for those occasions where the solder wick isn't enough. 
I have salvaged and reused many SMT components this way.


>The principle reason for SMD design is size. Stuff can be made a lot
>smaller that way.

Yes, this is also very good for RF projects, no lead lengths and the 
ability to place things much closer together.

>  It also eliminates a lot of thru holes in the PCB.

This makes for easy and quick home made PCB's Just mark out the cuts with a 
pen and use a small dentists Burr to separate the pads, this is much 
quicker than making up PCB boards with holes drilled though and much neater 
than doing ' surface mount'   with normal components, Manhattan and dead 
bug construction can also work nicely with SMT

>Manufacturing cost may also be less once a stable design is achieved
>and produced in quantity.

SMT is indeed intended for mass production BUT this should not preclude the 
amateur tinkerer giving it a go as SMT is ideal for some things (UHF & 
microwave projects, modifications to existing equipment (especially where 
size and neatness is an issue ) and anything that needs to be small. Some 
interesting components including some new chip designs are only available 
in SMT and for many other components the prices are lower in SMT.

SMT does not bite !

73
Brendan EI6IZ