[hpsdr] To kit or not to kit...............

[H. Gruchow]

Hello everybody,
why are so many people so shy when it comes to SMT soldering????

I am 55 years old and started my first time experience in SMT soldering by assembling some 
of Tonys Softrock kits where you have the direct comparison of conventional and SMT 
soldering.
I personally find it very easy to mount SMT and so fast as well. No bending of wires 
anymore, no cutting after soldering etc. etc.
The only new tools I had to buy where two specialized pairs of tweezers for 7 EUR each and 
a new pencil-size soldering tip for my old ERSA iron which I have since 20 years or more.

Just try.

I even have succeeded in soldering individual pins of a 0.5mm pitch test IC. For trial I 
had bought an epoxy board with several smd footprints of various sizes for 9 EUR and have 
unsoldered some ICs of old PC stuff I had lying around by using a hot air gun. I then 
reused them for solder testing. Worked fantastic and so I have lost any respect on SMD 
soldering.
Soldering together the D44-interface which I had bought from Eric took me exactly 7 
minutes of which I had to wait for 1 minute to warm up my soldering iron.

I have to admit that 0603 parts require a quick hand but still manageable.

Why I am writing this all?

I always hear and read in ham magazines 'oh, smt, stay away from it. I can't do'. Yes, you 
can. I repeat once again:

Just try.

73
Horst
DL6KBF


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