[Elecraft] New K1 Kit

[Gwen Patton]

I have a decent soldering station, but for SMD beyond a few parts I don't
use a soldering iron. I use an i-Extruder pencil (a stepper-motor powered
syringe dispenser) to apply dots of solder paste to the pads, then tweezers
to pick-and-place the components. If it's a small area, I use my hot air
station to melt the paste and solder the parts. If it's a larger board, I
use a microcontroller-driven heating plate called a ReflowR to precisely
ramp up the heat, melt the paste, and cool it off so as to cause the least
thermal shock to the board or the components.

I'm not nearly as good at the latter as I am with simple thru-hole
components, or a few larger SMD components. 0603 and above, I do by hand if
there's just a few. Most people suggest a "tack one end then get the other"
approach, and while it works, I don't find it as efficient as I'd like. So
I use the same i-Extruder to apply dots of Amtech "tacky flux". I place the
components on the pads, held down by the tacky flux, then tack-solder one
end, then the other. If it needs it, I go back and flow enough solder to
make a good fillet, but frequently the tack makes a decent fillet with that
good flux. That's how I built a Zachtek WSPR beacon a few weeks back. It
had four low-pass filter stages, each with several surface mount
components. It was few enough that I didn't think it warranted the reflow
plate, though I did use the hot air pencil to clean up the fillets I did
with my soldering iron. Came out looking really good, and working well.

73,
Gwen, NG3P

On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 2:33 PM rich hurd WC3T <rich at wc3t.us> wrote:

> Dead bug construction ROCKS.
>
> On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 2:02 PM Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com> wrote:
>
> > I miss the good ol' days, e.g. high school, when my quick 'n' dirty
> > transceiver projects were built by twisting component leads together. No
> > PCB, no chassis, nothing but raw parts. Hook up a 9 V battery and a
> > shamelessly untuned wire antenna. Work DX. Repeat.
> >
> > Wayne
> > N6KR
> >
> >
> > > On Jun 6, 2019, at 10:50 AM, James Doty <jamesd at moselle.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > SMD soldering is actually pretty easy.  It does take a good quality
> > > soldering station to do it though.
> > >
> > > Yes, I need magnification when soldering surface mount components. :)
> > >
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>
> --
> 72,
> Rich Hurd / WC3T / DMR: 3142737
> Northampton County RACES, EPA-ARRL Public Information Officer for Scouting
> Latitude: 40.761621 Longitude: -75.288988  (40°45.68' N 75°17.33' W) Grid:
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