[Elecraft] SMT - Was Re: Wayne on KNBx

[Stephen W. Kercel]

Jim:

I used to design electronic instrumentation at Oak Ridge National 
Laboratory, usually built under my direct supervision by the very competent 
technicians in my research group. However, when we came to installing SMT, 
we always farmed it out to an expert SMT constructor (a young woman with 
extremely steady hands and sharp eyes who did the SMT work for the whole 
Division). Admittedly, we did that for cost effectiveness of construction, 
and arguably, the cost of the time of an amateur constructor need not be 
taken into account. Perhaps it is possible for the typical amateur 
constructor to learn how to build SMT gear.

However, as Wayne pointed out in a post some months back, there is another 
issue with SMT. It is extremely costly for the kit manufacturer to support 
amateur constructors of SMT when the constructed kit fails to work 
correctly. If SMT kits are to become popular among amateur builders and 
profitable to the vendors, then some cost effective means of technical 
support needs to be devised.

73,

Steve
AA4AK


At 03:19 PM 7/19/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>Like it or not, we are seeing another transition in kit building.  Just as 
>some of us witnessed
>the transition from tubes to transistors, we are now seeing the beginning 
>of the transition from
>parts with leads to SMT.  I would guess that in ten years or so it will be 
>increasingly difficult
>to find parts with leads.  Perhaps those of us that are uncomfortable with 
>SMT should start
>stocking up on discrete parts and parts with leads.
>
>I successfully made the transition from tubes to transistors and am 
>beginning to embrace the
>transition to SMT.  I just received one of Steve Weber's ATSIII kits. It 
>is the most dense
>SMT kit I have attempted so far, but I am convinced that I can do it.
>Steve did  teach me
>something new about SMT.  He said to hold down the small parts with a 
>toothpick with some
>beeswax on it.  I could have used that info when assembling the AA-908.
>I was holding a
>really small part with tweezers when "twang" it went off to somewhere.
>I never did find it
>and had to wait for the arrival of its replacement.
>
>Jim, W4BQP
>Happy owner of K2 #2268 and a bunch of other Elecraft do-dads.
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