[Elecraft] Is the KX3 going to be sold as a kit?

[Wayne Burdick]

All of our SMD soldering is fully automated.

Wayne

On Jun 3, 2011, at 6:31 PM, ~BG~ wrote:

> Do you guys do all the SMD soldering by hand?  I'd be guessing that  
> the
> current volumes shipped you guys would've been able to invest in a  
> placement
> machine.  Small ones have been becoming reasonable affordable these  
> days
> (e.g. small outfits like Adafruit have been using one some their  
> higher
> volume Arduino kits and accessories).
>
>
> ./Ben
>
> On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> The KX3 has hundreds of SMDs. Many of them are so small that I need a
>> magnifying glass just to find them. Soldering them by hand is tedious
>> and fraught with peril (all of us on the team do it, but we don't
>> enjoy it).
>>
>> A full kit would be impossible to support and not profitable. Sorry
>> about that.
>>
>> 73,
>> Wayne
>> N6KR
>>
>> On Jun 3, 2011, at 11:25 AM, Tony Estep wrote:
>>
>>> You guys are killing me with this gloomy talk about SMDs. Just last
>>> night I
>>> ordered a Softrock. From reading the assembly manual I can see that
>>> this is
>>> a long-tailed project, but I'm determined to remain optimistic. My
>>> intention
>>> is to use it as an interface for CW Skimmer, taking IF out the back
>>> of my
>>> P3. We shall see...
>>>
>>> If I ever get it to work, I'll report back here.
>>>
>>> Tony KT0NY
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