I sort kit parts completely differently. I group parts, and tape one lead, bunches of capacitors of the same value all together, I scotch tape them to a piece of paper. Then I write the value and the part numbers on the piece of paper next to them. I put the same type of part on the same page.
To "clean up" after a work session, I just pick up the pieces of paper and stack them in the kit box and go away. this system provides a triple check as to the part, its value, and the part number with the directions. Parts are EZ to find, everything is labeled, one could use three holed paper and place the pages in a three ring binder for even greater convenience to instant clean-up. Visual... I have a big swing-arm magnifier with a flourescent bulb around it and I use this for observing part installation. I also have a clip-on ten times magnifier that I bought for ten bux at the fly fishing store. I flip this down to see the tinest inscriptions on little capacitors, then flip it back up when doing something else. I wear contact lenses these days, but I wear reading glasses when working and put the ten times magnifiers on those, which I think means they turn out being 15x times magnifiers ;-) Cake. cheaper, simpler than mag-eyes, tho mag-eyes would replace the big swing-arm illuminated magnifier that I have grown accustomed to using because I already had it for fly tying. this 15x system is wonderful for checking solder joints on the board, wow, I can see every tiny flake of rosin, even the slightest inconsistency in any solder joint. Toroid winding. VERY easy. I took a small wooden dowel and sharpened it, not all the way, with a pencil sharpener making it into a cone but no sharp point. You could use a pencil and not sharpen it to a point. I cut a small groove the length of it. This I support vertically in a vise clamped to my desk. The toroid goes over the dowel. The wire is threaded down the groove. The dowel holds the toroid, allows one to easily pull the windings tight, in fact you can pull it too tight (too tight is when you break the toroid), pressing the toroid down on the dowel squeezes the windings tight against the toroid on the inside, too. Between putting on a winding, it is hands free, the dowel holds the toroid, wires tight, everything. It is very easy to manipulate the windings to make them machine-like evenly distributed around the core when the core is over the dowel. The toroid over the dowel also holds the thing for tinning leads, giving both hands for holding the soldering iron and the solder or stetching out the subject wire. I always work on the down hill wire. i start close to the core and I can get very close with everything held this way, and slide the solder blob down the wire away from the core. I flip the toroid over to get the other wire. EZ. Making the toroids is fun when you have this set up. I make all the toroids at the same time, before I start building the kit, and I tape them to a page and label them. 73 Fred kt5x _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
