Everyone will develop their own techniques for SMD. After doing thousands, yes thousands, this is what I use. First, don't drink coffee for three days before you work. It's called caffeine palsy. It's not compatible with SMDs. Second, if the tweezers don't draw blood when they contact the flesh, they aren't shape enough. Third, get some bottled rosin flux. Thin it 50/50 with alcohol. Then paint the target area on the PCB with the 50/50 flux. Then place the chip components in their target locations. The flux will keep things in place for soldering. I use a combination of tweezers and an exacto knife to align and nudge parts into place. I use the blade to hold down pressure in the middle of the part while I solder. I use up to three soldering irons with tips to much the part. Get on and off the part in 2 seconds which means you need a hot iron. It's called one touch soldering. Set temperature, if you can to 750 to 800 degrees F. I work under a 10 power scope switching to 20x for 1x2 parts. 73 Fred, AE6QL
-----Original Message----- From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Hank P Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2015 2:32 PM To: Elecraft Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 KBPF3 mod for LF questions capacitor size ? Are these 0805 or 0603/0604 or even smaller chips ? Hank K7HP Received my KBPF3 mod kit for LF today. Caps are very small. This might be my first SMD, at least this tiny, work. With as big a magnify glass that I can find I can see the caps and after some effort get them on top of the existing caps but I can not get them to stay there. I have tried every small tweezers I can find, even very small ones from a little Swiss army knife, no luck. Any suggestions on how to keep them there would be appreciated. Thank you 73 Emory WM3M ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to fptowns...@earthlink.net ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
