[Elecraft] Tips on safely Soldering X7 - X11 Grounding wires on K2 RF Board

[Tom Hammond NØSS]

Hi Mike:

I can appreciate your concern. Though I don't think you'll have any problems.

Soldering the ground wires to the Xtal cane BEFORE you install them can be 
accomplished as follows:

1) Tin the end of ALL the wires you'll be using for the ground lead. Note 
that it's OK to leave a small amount of extra solder on the end of the wire.

2) Hold each xtal so it's on its side with one of the narrow sides facing 
up. If you have a small vise, use it.

3) Using your T/C iron (a wider tip if you happen to have one) at 700-725 
F, clean the tip and apply a small amount of solder to the tip to ensure 
that it's well tinned. Tin the bottom edge of the xtal can, about 1/8" up 
from the bottom bead going around the can. This should take only 4-5 
seconds, max. Repeat for the other side of the xtal can. Pre-tinning the 
can ensures that the solder will 'take' quickly in the next step AND it 
means that you didn't have to mess with a wire AND solder at the same time 
when trying to attach the wire itself.

4) With the Xtal still held in place, lay one of the tinned wired up 
against the tinned spot on the xtal case and touch BOTH the wire and the 
xtal can with the iron. You should see the solder from both tinned spots 
melt and 'sweat' the joint together.

DONE.

73,  Tom Hammond  N0SS

PS  It works well for me... of course, YMMV.

>I am a first time K2 builer, and just joined the list. I am greatly 
>enjoying my kitbuilding experience so far, but I have a little trepidation 
>in performing the crystal grounding steps for the 5 crystals that are 
>grounded on the sides of the case. I do have a temp controlled iron, and 
>have been running it at 700 degrees so far. I used a small amount of 
>liquid solder flux (only a small drop) on the tops of the crystal cans for 
>the previous crystals I have grounded, and the results seemed to be pretty 
>good, and did not require me to leave the iron on the crystal case for an 
>appreciable amount of time. I had also soldered the ground wires in before 
>the crytals in these earlier steps - that seemed to make life easier. I 
>guess I am a bit more jumpy on these last crystals because:
>
>1) Extra warnings in manual about excessive heat
>
>2) added complexity of soldering to both sides of crystal
>
>3) More awkward access, due to mount point on edge, and potential 
>interference from R pack SIPs on one side of crystals
>
>4) Extra difficulty in getting ground wires to lay close to the case
>
>So I was wondering at what techniques people had found for this that had 
>produced good results. Does it possibly make sense to try somehow to 
>solder the wires to the crytal case before the crystals are soldered into 
>the board? If not, is soldering the wires into the board first still seem 
>like a good approach? Is there some nice trick for getting the grounding 
>wire to lay against the side of the case prior to soldering? Any insights 
>would be appreciated.
>
>Tnx es 73 de KE0MF
>Mike
>
>
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