[Elecraft] securing toroids in K2, why not?

[Don Wilhelm]

  Ron,

Not diminishing your field experience, but speaking only from my 
experience with the K2 ...

Consider in the case of the K2, the engineer's decisions have been 
scrubbed by first the Field Testers  - ranging from experienced builders 
(including other engineers) to those who are building a kit for the 
first time - plus 12 years of positive customer experience.

That covers a LOT of field experience.  I have been with the K2 
experience for 12 years now (yes, I am an electrical engineer and 
understand the design), and have found that the design decisions of the 
K2 designers have been correct for the most part.  Any minor problems 
have been worked out between the designers and the testers and 
customers.  The K2 is a mature product, and all the bugs have been 
worked out - I challenge you to find a new one (but if you do, it will 
be definitely addressed).  The K2 designer(s) have had a goodly share of 
field experience themselves, plus a lot of prior successful transceiver 
designs.  Wayne Burdick designed the Wilderness Sierra and several other 
successful transceivers before embarking on the K2 journey.  
Transceivers that are still held in high esteem many years later.

I am quite familiar with the "pride of the designer" syndrome, having 
spent 14 years of my professional career evaluating products prior to 
announcement for a large corporation.  My task was to assure that the 
product met its specifications, and was achieved through extensive 
testing under extreme conditions.  Many  products did not make the 
grade, but others were modified as a result of the efforts of my test 
team in order to provide the customer with a product that worked as 
specified.  In other words, I am well experienced in evaluating product 
designs as well as creating test procedures to verify and support the 
product.  I can say that the K2 meets its specifications without 
embellishment.

Again, there is no need to apply any fixatives to the K2 (or K1 or KX1) 
toroids,  If you prefer conformal coating, so be it, but understand that 
it is at your own peril - some techniques could void your warranty.  The 
instructions to produce a working K2 are in the manual.  Follow them, 
and do not add or subtract anything, and you will be rewarded with a 
very good transceiver - 12 years of experience by both testers and 
customers is behind your efforts, and it is all documented in the manual.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 7/2/2011 11:12 PM, R Thompson wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
>     I've worked on aircraft for over 30 years and know what engineers can
> do :-)  There are many airworthiness directives issued after the
> engineers have finished their work.  I'd better not get something
> started, as I really do appreciate the work of the engineers.  More
> field experience would help some of them.
>
>             Ron VE8RT
>
> On Sat, 2011-07-02 at 22:47 -0400, Jim Campbell wrote:
>> Reminds me of a story that I heard years ago while on an assignment in
>> England.
>>
>> Seems that the Rolls Royce company didn't have an automatic transmission
>> in their cars. Since automatic transmissions were the up-and-coming
>> thing they decided that they needed one to offer in the Roolls Royce.
>> Rather than design one from scratch they surveyed the field and decided
>> that the best of breed was one made by General Motors. They entered into
>> an agreement with GM to use theirs.
>>
>> They took a GM automatic transmission into their shop and tore it down
>> completely. They wanted any transmission that was going into a Rolls
>> Royce to be top quality, inside and out.  Everything passed muster
>> except for one part.  It had a rough surface.  That just wouldn't do so
>> they machined the surface to a Rolls Royce standard.  The trouble was
>> that when the transmission was assembled it wouldn't work.  They
>> contacted GM and found out that the surface in question had to be rough
>> or the transmission wouldn't work.
>>
>> Best to trust the judgment of the design engineers.
>>
>> 72,
>>
>> Jim - W4BQP
>> K2 #2268
>>
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