Brett Gazdzinski wrote: > I hope Elecraft continues to make new kits, not the screw it together type > like the K3, but the kits you build from a big pile of parts. > After all, the surface mount stuff will kill any real kit building before > you know it, and I have built all the Elecraft kits, some twice.
I know how you feel. I recently bought a W1 wattmeter. I sort of needed another wattmeter, but really I wanted to sit down, turn on some classical music, and solder parts to a neat little board. I still get a kick when something I build works, even if it is a well-planned kit! I've built some stuff with surface mount parts. It's not so hard, although it's annoying when something goes flying. They seem to enter the 4th dimension before landing. I always keep some surface-mount diodes, resistors, and caps handy; hopefully the one that vanishes will be a common one. One thing that Elecraft can do is supply boards with multi-pin surface-mount parts already attached, and you can add through-hole components to finish it. They didn't do this with the K3 because of the difficulty of testing the partially-populated boards -- at least, I think this was the reason -- but it's practical with simpler kits. -- 73, Vic, K2VCO Fresno CA http://www.qsl.net/k2vco ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
