Surface Mount Components in Kits

[Barry A. Watzman]

Surface mount caps and resistors are difficult, but possible, to deal with using normal hand soldering tools [and probably an above average skill level].  However my opinion is that if you tried them in a volume kit, the failure rate, and the subsequent technical support and service costs, would be prohibitive [it doesn't take many failures, just high single digits, to make supporting a kit economically unfeasible].

The bigger problem is IC's, they CANNOT be dealt with without special soldering equipment.

The question was asked "how could people repair circuits in equipment with surface mount components?"

I didn't say that it couldn't be done, I said that it required special equipment - in the over $500 range [way over in most cases].  I believe that you would find that any facility doing COMPONENT level repair of SMC [surface mount] equipment has such tools.  But an awful lot of service facilities these days do only board level repair, and do consider all circuit boards to be disposable and just scrap them [obviously, it depends on the value and cost of the board, and what is on it].

Barry Watzman


----------
From:  Paul K. Dean [SMTP:wb9hgz at CHARLOTTESVILLE.NET]
Sent:  Wednesday, April 21, 1999 11:01 AM
To:  HEATH at LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV
Subject:  Re: Surface Mount Components in Kits

I built an S&S Engineering ARK-40 a while back.  In included a couple of
surface mount caps.  They were a bit of a pain, but the instructions were
quite good so they didn't present a huge problem.  S&S included a spare cap
in the kit.  The instructions said that the spare was included in case you
cracked one of the caps, which seemed to be a common occurance!

At 05:18 AM 4/21/99 -0700, Harvey A. Kader wrote:
>I agree with the statement that was made that kits with surface mount
>components can indeed be built. If that was not the case, then how could
>people repair circuits in equipment with surface mount components?
>Everything would be disposable like disposable contact lenses, and
>nothing would be repairable. Obviously, that is not the case, and
>surface mount equipment is repairable.
>
>Now if only people would start building equipment with vacuum tubes
>again in mass production, just think how easy it would be to repair!!
>
>
>Harvey A. Kader - http://www.angelfire.com/on/vacuumtubes
>
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