> On Jul 20, 2019, at 10:10 AM, lokna...@gmail.com wrote: > > If they're selling a kit, why not make these chips a part of the assembly > too? With a chisel tip and lots of flux, it should be manageable to solder > and would be a good learning experience. > > I completely agree, although from a business standpoint I suspect he > wouldn’t sell as many kits, as many hobbyists are still afraid of working > with SMD components. I know I was until I discovered liquid flux pens on > eBay. 😁
I'm not afraid of SMD, I just can't see well enough and my hands shake when I'm stressed out. I have several kits sitting here waiting for the day when I can sit down and work on them comfortably, whenever that will be. Building kits is supposed to be fun and the fewer fiddly bits the better. For me the main advantage of a kit is that it's cheaper and having all the SMD already in place really greases the skids. OTOH, if you're comfortable with SMD work more power to you. As for myself, I'm highly myopic and I used to be able to see things VERY close up. Now that I'm in my late 50s presbyopia has robbed me of my near vision. Furthermore, I have strabismus which causes my eyes to fail to converge properly and create a proper sense of depth. For me it's poor at a distance and improves as I move closer to an object but then just as I'm almost there everything starts to go out of focus. A binocular microscope wouldn't help me because when I look into one it's the same as looking at something in the distance so I can only use one eye at a time. When I was a kid I didn't realize that when you looked into a ViewMaser you were supposed to see a stereoscopic image. Later in my teens I found some reels for sale that were old stereoscopic pictures from the 19th Century. I bought the ones with trains, stuck them in the ViewMaster, and with great effort finally managed to see something in 3D for the first time. I was probably 15 or 16. Needless to say I'm not a big fan of 3D movies. The only one I've seen (partially) was Werner Herzog's Cave Of Forgotten Dreams and I had to sit in the front row to even...well, I forgot to mention that my glasses have such a low (negative) power that they make everything I see MUCH smaller than life size. Objects appear smaller than they actually are, to borrow or perhaps mutilate a phrase. And because my retina is stretched out slightly the neurons in my fovea are farther apart than normal which reduces the acuity of my sight even further. I used to be able to glance at a resistor to read the value. Now I HAVE to use an ohmmeter to be sure. And yes, I can see well enough to drive even at night. I have a very good ophthalmologist. I hope this doesn't sound too much like a rant. As I said if you're comfortable with SMD work more power to you. Do you want to hear about the floaters? Terry Bowman, KA4HJH "The Mac Doctor" "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes."—Roy Batty, Blade Runner -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/85984415-1657-4417-9EE8-51429D25C727%40gmail.com.
