[Elecraft] Stainless Steel Screws

[Don Wilhelm]

  Dave,
I have repaired a couple K2s that have lived in corrosive environments - 
I recall one from the Houston, Texas area and another from Panama.  
There were signs of corrosion on the exterior - all the case screws were 
corroded and even the body of the BNC antenna jack and the exposed part 
of the key jack.
In both cases, I expected to find similar conditions inside, but to my 
surprise, the interior parts were just fine even though there are holes 
in the K2 enclosure for options that were not installed.

I cannot say that the K3 will be immune from harm in a salt air 
environment, but my experience with these K2s indicate that internal 
damage will not be as great a problem as one could imagine.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 10/19/2010 2:00 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
>    If you're
> exposing your K3 to an atmosphere malignant enough to corrode the screws
> it seems to me that you have bigger issues to worry about inside the
> rig.  Whether the screws are corroding due to the combination of
> moisture and dissimilar metals (steel and aluminum), or due to the
> combination of moisture and corrosive ions (salt atmosphere, air
> pollution, etc), why wouldn't essentially the same thing be happening to
> the components and circuit boards?
>
> Maybe the stock screws should be thought of as a "fuse" (weakest link)
> to let you know that you're doing something wrong.
>
> Dave   AB7E
>