Its a skill that one needs time and practise to master. I used to
run a home business building smd kits for others after a career as a
component level technician where I did smd repairs. But the last
generation of MOT intrinsically safe radios required a $10,000 school
and a dedicated repair station to be qualified by MOT to do repair
work. MOT instituted a flat-rate repair service for about $150 per
radio which turned me into a troubleshooter and shipping dept. I
retired a few years after that.
I bought a Haako FX-951 repair station for that business and used a
lighted magnifier.
SMD assembly is much faster/cheaper and can be automated on a
production line with better reliability than human-built. That's why
todays tech does system troubleshooting to the board level and then
board replacement. New boards are cheaper than paying the tech to
repair them. Most commercial radio shops charge $100-$125/hour for
servicing. Another ten years and there will no longer be component
level techs.
Very hard for a small business to compete using a human production
line of solderers. Probably only find a small line to build
pre-production units for testing/re-engineering.
---------------------------------
There probably aren?t more than a handful of folks who could
actually build an SMD kit of any size without having to send it back
to Elecraft to be built or to fix the mess.
Grant NQ5T
K3 #2091 KX3 #8342
73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
Dubus-NA Business mail:
dubus...@gmail.com
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