David

I just used a 12 Watt Antex soldering iron type M, Maplin part number YU90X. They come with a pointed bit as standard. You also need solder wick (or Soldamop) Maplin part number N58AL and stainless steel tweezers.

Working on the K3 might sound a little daunting, but one of my technicians used to work on SMD parts in his previous job and told me the easy way to work on them for changing the odd part or two...

1. Using the solder wick, remove the solder from both ends of the resistor/capacitor. 2. The joints should look "dry", holding the component in the tweezers heat one end with the soldering iron and lift that end slightly, then warm the other end.

This was the first time I had worked on surface mount, although I have more than 20 years experience of PCB work from a previous job.

An amateur grade heat gun on an expensive K3 sounds like a disaster in the making to me! Proper SMD hot air re-work stations cost thousands, they cost that much for a reason.

73 Dave, G4AON
K3/100 #80 with AGC and CW waveform modifications
===================================================

I need to make the K3 mods and was wondering if an investment in a
heat gun would be worthwhile (it's not like SMT is going to go away!).
73 de M0XDF, K3 #174
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