[Elecraft] K2 headphone jack

[Leigh L Klotz, Jr.]

Yes that is the method I used.
I have replaced mine thrice:
1. Used snippers to cut the plastic apart.
2. Cut metal vertically if necessary until I can deal with one pin at a 
time.
3. Used a solder sucker, the vacuum cylinder kind that looks like a 
syringe.   If you have never used one, you will think that they must be 
made by Ronco or Popeil and sold on late-night TV and could not possibly 
work.  But they do work magic.
4. If the new jack's pins won't fit in, solder the hole closed and 
repeat step 3, then use a wire or a steel pin (solder won't stick) to 
clean it out.
5. Be sure it's level!

If you use this approach, the heating time on that tiny area of the 
board will be minimized and you will reduce risk to the board.

While some say the jack fails due to downward pressure and others say it 
fails due to repetitn, lately some think that the switch in the jack is 
damaged by excessive heat during soldering, so I tried to solder it as 
quickly as I could this last time, and also I installed a fixed-level 
audio out board for digital modes, so that I wasn't tempted to plug in 
the headphone jack when I didn't really need to.

73 es GL,
Leigh/WA5ZNU

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 9:38 am, Scott McDowell wrote:
> The headphone jack
> ...
Does anyone know of an easy way to change it out without damaging the

Scott N5SM write:
> RF board.
> I've been thinking about trying to cut it into small bits with wire 
> cutters so that maybe I take the pins out of the rf board one at a time.