[Elecraft] Fig. 62 Cold Solder Joints (K3)?

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Yep. That board works FB. There's just not a lot of excess solder on many
pads as often occurs when hand soldering. For folks used to seeing a nice
fillet on each wire, a perfect machine-soldered board using plated through
holes may have many pads that look downright "anemic". Actually, this is
what you should strive for when hand-soldering plated through holes too. As
the Elecraft assembly manuals for soldered-component kits points out, "You
don't need a 'fillet' (build up) of solder." 

That's why very small diameter solder is recommended for soldered-component
kits, and the instructions encourage builders to use a "minimum". 

Truth to tell, a fillet within reason won't hurt anything, and it's better
than missing a pad because you didn't notice there was no solder in it at
all when doing a visual inspection. The instructions try to point out where
having an absolute minimum of solder and flush-cut leads are critical in
tight quarters (e.g. KX1 boards). 

Also, you *can* be fooled by trying to dissect the photos. They are edited
and sized, including resolution, to show whatever the builder needs to be
doing at that point. In this case, it's to show the correct orientation and
location of the plug for the speaker wire, not to illustrate soldering on
nearby pads ;) 

As far as I have been able to determine, the K3 shown in the preliminary
manual is fully-functional even though many of the pc boards are early
engineering prototypes (hence the visible parts tacked on here and there and
the occasional wire jumper). During its brief periods all assembled I've run
tests just to see if I broke anything <G>. Actually, I did once and spent
two days troubleshooting. The end result was a caution about one place where
carelessly assembling some hardware can produce a critical short. It didn't
hurt anything except my ego and time schedule, and it did produce a caution
for builders so you won't fall into the same trap working too long, too late
or too fast.

And that's exactly why Elecraft assembly manuals are written while actually
building the rig. It's not possible to do a quality job with an assembly
manual by studying drawings or guessing at the best approach. The Elecraft
"hands-on Ham radio" rigs are designed and built by "hands-on Hams". 

Ron AC7AC 


-----Original Message-----

Plated through holes.

Dan / WG4S

<snip>

I wonder if they used a bummer board, just to get a photo in?

</snip>