[Elecraft] Building Elecraft K2

[Ted Buckley]

Group:  long post. . . . random thoughts. . .
To follow up on a recent thread,
I agree that soldering one component at a time is worthwhile. If the goal 
is to end up with a world class radio you built, the time it takes is not 
of too much importance it would seem.  Following are some notes from my 
efforts in building K2 3202.

Inventorying and staging parts before beginning will greatly reduce the 
chance of putting a component in the wrong place.  The multitude of small 
capacitors are a particular area of concern.  The process I've found that 
works for me is to stage the parts in the order called for in the 
documentation.  I used a piece of pink styrofoam, 10" X18" X 1/2", marking 
off blocks of parts to be installed with a "Sharpy" marking pen.  For 
example, on page 22 of the Owner's Manual, Install the following 1/4-watt 
fixed resistors, there are 3 groups of two, followed by a single R14 
100K.  Sticking these into the styrofoam in the order called for 
establishes that you have the parts, and they are in the order you will use 
them.  Single one-of-a kind parts need not be staged, but should be sorted 
out into containers such as muffin tins, ect for easy 
counting/retrieval.  Steal the muffin tins out of the kitchen when she 
isn't looking; don't ask for muffins for a while.   I arranged "left to 
right, bottom to top".  Whatever is your style.  Note:  on some of the 
options, the instructions are not as complete as they are for the basic 
tranceiver.  For example, in the KAT2 manual, page 4 where it calls for 
installing 3 resistors, the R numbers are called out but not the values; 
arrange them on the styrofoam in value order determined by the parts list.

If this is done systematically, errors such as confusing red and brown on 
the RF Choke color bands (yes, I had that problem too!) will come up before 
you have actually put any parts in the board.  Resolving actual values of 
capacitors vs what looks like is marked on them will occur before 
installation.

When actually building the board, take frequent breaks to rest your 
eyes.  Relaxing focus for a few minutes will help when you resume.  When 
soldering connectors, ICs and IC sockets, where the instructions call for 
soldering a pin or two before proceding offer another opportunity to miss a 
connection, particularly on IC sockets.  If you solder pin 1 and 15, it is 
easy to miss soldering pin 28 as you work your way up the line after you've 
confirmed proper mechanical seating..  It is for me, anyway!  Someone 
suggests tapping the connection and listening; perhaps this will work.  I 
prefer to use a a tool of some kind (my trusty CBS HYTRON Soldering Aid, 
tip suitably bent and sharpened) to actually reach out and touch each 
connection, perhaps gently removing a little flux. This is the result of 
misspent years inspecting oscilloscopes prior to calibrating them!  If you 
have to touch the connection, you have to look at it!  At least I do!

Keep your soldering tools in order.  A burned through iron coated soldering 
iron tip will retain a pocket of molten solder, ready to dump it where you 
don't want it.  If the tip is not tinned properly, the solder won't flow 
and you'll end up overheating the joint.  If something moves while the 
solder is molten and cooling, you'll likely end up with a "cold" solder 
joint, which will end up acting like a resistor.  If you are using the 
recommended solder, don't worry about the flux residue on the board.  If 
you aren't, it is probably too late to worry about it anyway!

A good way to break up the work, is to check in here on the reflector and 
see what the folk are doing. . . the support is outstanding.

If I don't get flamed too bad for this one, I'll do one later on calibrating.

73, Ted WA7DFD