[Elecraft] Tools?

[Able2fly@aol.com]

To Kevin in Oz and all the others replying to this thread, a big THANK YOU, I 
now see where my tool box that was populated 30+ years ago would have only 
led me to grief in constructing the K2. The ESD pad/wrist strap, Weller WES51, 
flush cutters and Opti-Visor are but some of the additions that are sure to 
make all the difference. As a side note, I have the TS570D cranked down to 10w 
and am running into a surprising number of Elecrafters around 7.040 mHz. Cool!  
My K2 kit should arrive sometime this week...

Bill  K3UJ

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Bill,

The tools make a very great difference, I believe.  Following my experience,
you need:
(a) a temperature controlled iron with a 0.8 mm tip for most of your joints.
I use a Duratech product which has an LCD display of the temperature and
which has controls to enable you to change the temperature without changing
the tip as in a popular Weller product.  I suggest an ESD safe product if
you can afford it.  (My Duratech TS1400 has a 4 mm socket to which one can
attach a ground wire.  More on this below.)  Also have a couple of spare
tips of different sizes - a larger one with a flat tip may be just the thing
for soldering crystal cases (ugh I HATE this part of the job).
(b) I suggest eutectic solder (63% tin 37% lead) with non soluble rosin
core.  I use a very fine gauge Ersin Multicore which works very well.  The
eutectic solder has a one temperature, definite freezing point and I believe
it reduces the incidence of cold joints.
(c) A set of FLUSH cutting side cutters.  I use a Lundgren product,
expensive, but worth it compared with all the cheaper products I have used
for decades.  The method I use is this.  Put your passive component into the
board, bend the leads so that it won't fall out, solder ONE lead.  Check
that the component is in as far as it will go.  Solder the other lead.  Cut
the pigtails off flush with the board.  Touch the iron on one joint, then
the other.  This ensures as far as possible that there will be no cold
joint, and also the joint finish will be ever so slightly domed and smooth
and less likely to hold dust and fluff while the radio is in use.
(d) An opti-visor with a rotatable auxiliary lens or loupe.  Do a Google
search until you find the website for opti-visor and read about the
different magnifications available.  Mine gives me stereoscopic vision of my
board and the auxiliary loupe is essential for reading the values on small
blue or yellow capacitors.  I can wear it over my glasses, but bifocal
glasses are a bit of a pain.
(e) An antistatic mat and antistatic wrist strap with ground wires.  The
ground wires have high value resistors built in to protect you in case of an
electrical fault.  I connect my Duratech iron to the mat, the wrist strap to
the mat, and the mat to a convenient 4 mm ground socket on my oscilloscope
that is always plugged into the mains.  Get into the habit of always putting
on the wrist strap, so that it feels funny if you do not have it on.  A bit
like always putting on your seat belt when getting into a car, but then
Americans don't use seat belts, do they?  Perhaps a bad example.  But I am
so used to putting my seat belt on, I can not possibly drive a car without
it on.
(f) I invested in a Panavise PC board holder, but experience shows that I do
not use it all that much
(g) a set of good needle nosed straight pliers is essential.
(h) a Philips head screw driver of the size that will suit the myriad
chassis screws.  It will also drive most other screws in the kit.
(i) A good desoldering iron.  I have found the inexpensive GC product able
to do everything that I needed - and I had to desolder and replace the multi
pinned LCD display panel IC (ouch!)  But I do recommend a combination iron
and sucker so that you can have a one-handed operation.
(j) a small flat bladed screw driver.
(k) a butane lighter for stripping the enamel off your toroid windings -
unless you buy your toroids from Mychael.
(l) a sheet of fine wet and dry sandpaper to remove the charred enamel from
your toroid windings.

I can't think of anything else at the moment.

Have fun!

73
Kevin
VK3DAP / ZL2DAP


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