First K2 question
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Hi!
As a previous builder of MANY Heathkits, 2 or 3 good sized Boats, a 3-car PoleBarn, a couple of Homes, and most recently K2 # 5422 - I had success with these methods: Assumption: Elecraft's Christine and the other very smart Techs, rarely if ever seem to mispackage or short items from the various K2 section packages. I think in K2 # 5422 - I was short 1 small diode. 0. Get yourself a good set of basic TOOLS; a solder sucker, a good pair of small flush-cut dikes, a sharp knife, small tweezers, and very good low-rosin Kester Solder. A good sized hand magnifiying glass. Some rubber bands. Throw the de-solder braid, in the trash can. A good solder-station - can be found for $25. A good basic digital VOM, with C's measurent capability, also like $25. A jar of alcohol. Nice clean rag. Anti-static desk mat, wrist-strap. A good desk lamp. 00. Inventory MAJOR SECTIONS - are the PCB board there, are there bags for each section, etc. Are the chasis metal parts there? 1. Buy the Mr. TOROID Guy's toroid set, for your Elecraft kit. He does a much better job of building these critical L parts, than we will probably do. I felt this was the single most important decision I did - when I built K2 # 5422. If one is the least tired, or rushed - and trys to wind an important L toroid - good luck! Screwing just 1 up - will cause you all sorts of troubleshooting time. And mis-wound toroids may give you a K2 that may never really stack up among the best performers. 2. DO NOT do a complete INVENTORY of all the Elecraft Parts, when you start. I know this sounds dumb, but the chance of homogenizing all the parts together is too tempting and too possible. The risk of breaking or loosing parts is also risky. The risk of handling all those parts, probably without any static protection, could ruin semiconductor parts. I've felt it is very risky to attempt to INVENTORY all the K2 parts, at the start. First you probably haven't the foggiest which part is for what. And if you loose or homogenize them together - GOOD LUCK! (I'm still searching for that 1 small diode, that I had at the onset - but which vanished 3 weeks later) 3. Concentrate on building each K2 section alone. Work on it, check it, test it, perform whatever checks the manual calls for. The manual technique is organized that way. 4. Sort out those parts needed for that ONE SECTION, into small ceramic bowls: capacitors, diodes, resistors take care of themselves, mechanical fasteners, wire items, IC's & transistors, and misc devices. Have a "mechanical" bowl. As you near the completion of each K2 section - attempt to determine if you have any missing or broken parts to replace. GET THOSE ORDERS into Elecraft, and request FIRST CLASS US POSTAL delivery. The $5 postal fee is well worth it! Do this part-order process, like 5 days before you expect to complete a given section. 5. DO NOT use use Styrofoam containers to store parts - I tend to think this stuff stores static charge (Q), and can ruin semiconductor parts POW. Putting parts and devices into holes in cardboard - was not productive for me. If you sort into ceramic bowls - it forces you to recognize those parts you have to work with, and you will quickly learn the physical appearance of all these many many different parts. You will know what a "103" is, a "2N4446" is, etc. 5 or 6 ceramic bowls works. When the bowl(s) are empty - hopefully you are at the end of a build section, in the manual. 6. If you must retrace yourself, and install missing or broken parts in a previous kit section - make some notes in your manual, to point your way for going back - when the Elecraft parts package arrives. 7. By all means, take your time. Perhaps 2 hour sints at the most. If you start getting groggy or tired, you concentration will vanish - and mistakes will happen. EXPECT to make some builder mistakes. We are all human. 8. Enjoy the project - heck, we could probably buy a completed transceiver for a similiar price, and save the hundred hours it takes to build a K2. But, you will end up with an inferior commercial product, and one that you haven't the foggiest idea of how it's built or how it performs and operates. Melted solder smells good! :) Enjoy - Fred & 73's ... hit my thumb with my hammer, more than once! N3CSY .... FL, NY 8/2006 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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Fred (FL) wrote:
> 1. Buy the Mr. TOROID Guy's toroid set, for your > Elecraft kit. He does a much better job of building > these critical L parts, than we will probably do. > I felt this was the single most important decision I > did - when I built K2 # 5422. If one is the least > tired, or rushed - and trys to wind an important L > toroid - good luck! Screwing just 1 up - will cause > you all sorts of troubleshooting time. And mis-wound > toroids may give you a K2 that may never really stack > up among the best performers. Well...Mr Toroid Guy does a good job and his toroids are very neat. But this makes it sound like winding them requires special skill or is very critical. Not so! Just remember that each pass through the hole is one turn, try to space the windings as explained in the instructions, and strip the leads properly. Even if they don't come out as neat as they might, they will work fine if you follow the instructions. This is absolutely not rocket science or voodoo, and not too hard either! -- 73, Vic, K2VCO Fresno CA http://www.qsl.net/k2vco _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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>Vic K2VCO wrote:
> > Even if they don't come out as neat as they might, they will work fine > if you follow the instructions. This is absolutely not rocket science > or voodoo, and not too hard either! The nice thing about toroidal inductors is that their inductance is less sensitive to the "esthetics" of the winding than with solonoidal inductors. Each pass through the donut hole counts as a "turn" so when you first stick the end of the wire through the hole to start winding, you've already put one turn on. When you bring the long end around the core and stick it back through, you have two turns on although only one shows on the outside of the core. Wanting "The Full K2 Experience," I did all of mine myself. Elecraft gives you plenty of wire for a do-over or two, the lengths they tell you to start with are all more than sufficient, and all but one have a civilized number of turns with civilized wire size (the one with many turns of very fine wire comes pre-wound for you). The only problem I had stemmed from the apparent fact that the illustrations (and board placement) are intrinsically right-handed. I'm left-handed and my first try looked really good, however the leads didn't line up with the holes in the board when the core was positioned over the silk screened outline. They didn't on the do-over either. I watched my right-handed wife do it (her's came out correct) and I decided to just adapt and wind them all like she did (we lefties are used to the tyranny of the right-handers) [Small digression: News story a couple of days ago in the Sacramento Bee revealed that college-educated left-handed males on average will make 15% more money in their lifetime than college-educated right-handed males. So there! My wife read the story and said, "What did you do with your 15%?"] Be very careful and deliberate with T5. It has two windings and the direction of each winding is critical. And it is far easier to do the "Solder-blob heat stripping" than it is to describe it. I agree with Vic, the toroids are a paper tiger, and are not rocket science. OTOH: I've seen Mychael's and they *do* look a little better than mine! I'd be surprised if his K2 works any better than mine, however. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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Fred:
> > > The only problem I had stemmed from the apparent fact that the > illustrations (and board placement) are intrinsically right-handed. > I'm left-handed and my first try looked really good, however the leads > didn't line up with the holes in the board when the core was > positioned over the silk screened outline. They didn't on the do-over > either. I watched my right-handed wife do it (her's came out correct) > and I decided to just adapt and wind them all like she did (we lefties > are used to the tyranny of the right-handers) > > softkey switches for the Z90 panadapter on the LEFT side of the LCD...It works a lot better for me than having them on the right hand side. So far, no one has commented on that, which might mean that hams are (a) unobservant or (b) all left-handed as well. Jack _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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In reply to this post by k6dgw
I never thought of it as lefthanded or righthanded, I just hold the core in
my right hand and 'sew' the wire downward through the hole with my more agile left hand - I can see the turns better than winding fro the bottom up. The 'righties' would hold the core in the left hand and 'sew' the wire upward though the core center to produce the same thing. I do not believe I have gotten my 15% yet either <G> 73, Don W3FPR > -----Original Message----- > > The only problem I had stemmed from the apparent fact that the > illustrations (and board placement) are intrinsically right-handed. I'm > left-handed and my first try looked really good, however the leads > didn't line up with the holes in the board when the core was positioned > over the silk screened outline. They didn't on the do-over either. I > watched my right-handed wife do it (her's came out correct) and I > decided to just adapt and wind them all like she did (we lefties are > used to the tyranny of the right-handers) > > [Small digression: News story a couple of days ago in the Sacramento > Bee revealed that college-educated left-handed males on average will > make 15% more money in their lifetime than college-educated right-handed > males. So there! My wife read the story and said, "What did you do > with your 15%?"] > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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In reply to this post by Jack Smith-6
Jack Smith wrote:
> I'm extremely left-handed as well. Hence, I put all the push button > softkey switches for the Z90 panadapter on the LEFT side of the > LCD...It works a lot better for me than having them on the right > hand side. > > So far, no one has commented on that, which might mean that hams > are (a) unobservant or (b) all left-handed as well. Most likely answer is (a). However, years ago while still grinding away at the employment thing (with marginal success), I had an engineering team of exactly a dozen trying to rescue a project that was rattling around in the bottom of the tank. Engineering schools should teach more project management, maybe in place of some of the math ... I never saw a project fail for lack of knowledge of partial differential equations, but I sure saw a lot that failed on elementary project management and rudimentary cost accounting knowledge and application. Eleven of us were left-handed and we of course exercised our majority rights and set up the three CAE stations left-handed. The one dexterous member took it in stride and acknowledged that payback-time does come to all every now and then and he adapted. It didn't seem to affect his work, and I think he may have actually been a closet southpaw. I am still looking for my 15% additional income however. With 4 kids, the outgo always seem to equal the income, sometimes before the income came. For the record, as a 13-yr old, I learned to send CW right-handed (from a left-handed Elmer) so I could write with my left hand. "Really important," he said. Turns out, I can't write very legibly with either hand. I find the K2 to be pretty much non-handed. It would be nice if the SPOT switch and XFIL were on the left, and I could easily tolerate MENU and DISPLAY on the right since I never need them during normal operation. I think some of the K2 non-handedness comes from its much smaller size. My FT-847 is really annoying ... the key pad is really on the right and I cover up the display when I use it, fingers supporting my hand on top and big thumb poking tiny buttons. All in all thought, I think Wayne and Eric have done a class job. Fred K6DGW Auburn CA CM98lw _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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In reply to this post by Don Wilhelm-3
Don,W3FPR wrote:
I never thought of it as lefthanded or righthanded, I just hold the core in my right hand and 'sew' the wire downward through the hole with my more agile left hand - I can see the turns better than winding fro the bottom up. The 'righties' would hold the core in the left hand and 'sew' the wire upward though the core center to produce the same thing. I do not believe I have gotten my 15% yet either <G> ---------------------------------------- I can't begin to count the number of "Elecraft" toroids I've wound over the years and, as a leftie, I still have to stop and think for a moment when I start one in order to get the windings going the right direction. Add to that a touch of dyslexia, which seems to favor lefties, and I have to be real careflu...er, careful. Topological trivia for y'all. Which Elecraft toroid is correctly wound LEFT-handed? Answer below: The answer is L1 in the T1 ATU. It's a three-turn winding that fills the space normally left open on toroids. So, for the leads to fit the pads on the board, it must be wound in the opposite (left-handed) direction, unlike other Elecraft toroids. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [hidden email] 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 |
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