Jim:
I used to design electronic instrumentation at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, usually built under my direct supervision by the very competent
technicians in my research group. However, when we came to installing SMT,
we always farmed it out to an expert SMT constructor (a young woman with
extremely steady hands and sharp eyes who did the SMT work for the whole
Division). Admittedly, we did that for cost effectiveness of construction,
and arguably, the cost of the time of an amateur constructor need not be
taken into account. Perhaps it is possible for the typical amateur
constructor to learn how to build SMT gear.
However, as Wayne pointed out in a post some months back, there is another
issue with SMT. It is extremely costly for the kit manufacturer to support
amateur constructors of SMT when the constructed kit fails to work
correctly. If SMT kits are to become popular among amateur builders and
profitable to the vendors, then some cost effective means of technical
support needs to be devised.
73,
Steve
AA4AK
At 03:19 PM 7/19/2005 -0400, you wrote:
Like it or not, we are seeing another transition in kit building. Just as
some of us witnessed
the transition from tubes to transistors, we are now seeing the beginning
of the transition from
parts with leads to SMT. I would guess that in ten years or so it will be
increasingly difficult
to find parts with leads. Perhaps those of us that are uncomfortable with
SMT should start
stocking up on discrete parts and parts with leads.
I successfully made the transition from tubes to transistors and am
beginning to embrace the
transition to SMT. I just received one of Steve Weber's ATSIII kits. It
is the most dense
SMT kit I have attempted so far, but I am convinced that I can do it.
Steve did teach me
something new about SMT. He said to hold down the small parts with a
toothpick with some
beeswax on it. I could have used that info when assembling the AA-908.
I was holding a
really small part with tweezers when "twang" it went off to somewhere.
I never did find it
and had to wait for the arrival of its replacement.
Jim, W4BQP
Happy owner of K2 #2268 and a bunch of other Elecraft do-dads.
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