[Elecraft] Wayne on KNBx

[Vic Rosenthal]

Joe Squarzini wrote:

> Wayne, regarding your post on an upgraded KNB2. The time has come for 
> all of us in the kit building community to embrace surface mount. We 
> need to start installing these devices ourselves. It's really not that 
> hard. 

There's a difference between replacing a couple of SMDs, as many of us 
have done, and populating a whole board -- especially if you are using 
the smaller ones and they are closely packed.  My personal feeling is 
that I would not want to tackle anything more than a very simple project 
using SMDs.

The full advantage of using these devices is not felt unless they can be 
packed densely anyway.  If you look at examples of boards produced 
commercially by automated processes, it's hard to imagine duplicating 
that kind of product by hand.  If you have the Elecraft DSP, for 
example, look at the daughterboard containing the processor.

It would be possible to produce a board with an open layout and specify 
only the largest sizes of SMDs.  But the frustration factor (consider 
soldering the pins of a microprocessor or other large IC!) would be much 
greater and the advantage small.

Just my opinion.

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco