Speaking for myself, I'm very pleased with the approach you've taken.
While my soldering skills are excellent and I enjoy the building process
very much, SMD's are out of the question for me. In the case of the K3,
I save a few hundred $ doing the mechanical assembly - which is great -
glad that option is available.
However, I'm drawn to the K3 not for the kit-building experience, but
for its superb design and outstanding performance. This is my chance to
own a truly high-performance rig in a price range I can afford.
To me, the K2 and K3 are apples and oranges. If you want to build - buy
a K2. You will have a great kit-building experience and a great rig
when you're done. If you want a radio with high-performance - and that
is your purchase criteria - then the K3 is for you. And oh by the way,
you can save a few bucks if you do some of the mechanical assembly work
yourself. A bonus feature.
As I'm sure you've heard this over and over - great job on the K3.
Can't wait to get mine. I'm sure you guys feel a great deal of
gratification and satisfaction from all of the positive feedback. The
K3 may very well become the benchmark by which other rigs are measured.
73 es tnx,
Doug -- K0DXV
wayne burdick wrote:
We've had a few requests for a "full" K3 kit -- one where the builder
installs all of the parts, including the SMDs (surface mount devices).
Unfortunately this isn't practical for a project of this complexity. I
realize that many of our customers are quite capable of doing SMD
assembly, but many would have difficulty, too, since there are
hundreds of SMDs, many with very fine pitch leads.
In order to support a "full" kit, we'd have to stock and kit all of
the SMDs for a small percentage of builders. This would represent a
huge amount of added overhead, since at present the SMDs are shipped
directly from vendors to our assembly facility. In addition, we'd need
a lot of additional documentation and support staff to help with
SMD-related assembly, testing, troubleshooting and repair. I consider
myself a very capable SMD builder, but I occasionally mis-install a
part or leave a joint unsoldered, and troubleshooting such problems
can be very tedious even for the designer!
The other request has been for a version of the K3 where the builder
installs all the leaded parts. This, too, would create major
difficulties for a product like the K3. Even if we pre-installed the
SMDs, we wouldn't be able to fully test the PC boards if we didn't
also install the leaded parts, including connectors. Nodal testing
using custom fixtures for each board might get around this, but it
could take another year of engineering time to complete. And we'd
still have problems: a very expensive multilayer board with lots of
SMDs that was damaged during customer assembly would be a serious
liability both for us and the builder.
The modular, no-soldering K3 kit will, we hope, be attractive to both
our current customers and to new builders who would never have
attempted to build their own transceiver before. With our
encouragement (and yours), these new builders may go on to try their
hand at our "full" kits. We plan to continue to offer all of our
present kits and will add new ones in the future.
73,
Wayne
N6KR
---
http://www.elecraft.com
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