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

[k4wtf@ENTERZONE.NET]

On Wed, 8 Jan 2003, Vic Rosenthal wrote:

> Brendan Minish wrote:
> > 
> > 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.
> 
> I agree that it's not a big deal to mount a few SMT parts, for example when
> doing a repair or mod.  But I can't imagine doing a K2 RF board!  For my part,
> at least, the stress generated by manipulating those tiny parts under a
> magnifier severely limits how much work I can do at a time.  Ang God help me
> when one pops out of the tweezers onto the carpet (yes, I have a &*%$@ carpet
> in  my work area). 
> 
> Vic K2VCO


I would enjoy the challenge (I think) of building an SMT kit but, I agree
with the notion that we would fast approach critical mass if something
popped out of the tweezers.  My "work area" is in the basement along with
the hamshack and home theater.  For home theater purposes, the carpet is
thick and the color is black.  Goodbye little part!

Still, I don't know of a very good _perm_ flooring that makes finding
dropped parts easy.  In a previous life, while doing component level
(smt) repairs on cell-cite equipment in the field, I would lay down a
"floor" of white paper tablecloth material around the area I was
working.  If something was dropped and I couldn't find it against the
white background, I could simply lift the edges and everything would move
towards the middle.  It came in very handy more than once!

73 de John - K4WTF