Absolutely do not leave out the fillet. If you have a lead that sticks out of a hole, you should have a fillet around it. That is a requirement of the NASA soldering course of years ago, but has not changed as far as I see in modern assemblies.
The flush plated thru hole is OK for solder bond to a lead, but you lose the ability to clip on a test lead there. Also, if ever you have to remove the component, the extension of the lead out the plated thru hole gives you something to grab; to wiggle the lead and break the solder bonds while the solder is wet. Continued movement of the lead keeps it from reattaching as the solder cools, and facilitates removing the old component. I think having a test point is as important as any of the other reasons for not cutting leads flush. Besides, the board has leaded components that will stick thru and should not be cut, (are not designed to be cut) as I mentioned in the earlier post. Those automatically determining that some leads protrude thru the bottom of the board. Now anyone is free to do what they want, but if I got a unit in my shop years ago to repair that had been assembled with leads cut flush, I would have to charge more for the aggravation of working on it, or refuse to service it. In building electronics, you should always design, lay out, and assemble to facilitate future repairs. Unfortunately, much of today's consumer electronics is built to "throw away", but I doubt most hams would want to do that with their kit when it has a simple failure that soldering in a new component would fix. I have followed the above in both design, modification, and selection of professional science equipment for 45 years, and found that years after something was obtained, attention to reparability saved the day when we had to fix it. -Stuart K5KVH _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
