day job

[Barry L Klein]

Hi all,
I've been here at WDC almost 9 years working on disk drive reliability and
design improvement etc.  All SMT with really damn small stuff.  Luckily I
haven't had to work much with the 2-3" drives we had a while back.  It is
all workable you just have to be able to see it.  No special solders,
pastes, or glues.  Just a Weller, thin solder, and a magnifier over my
bifocals....  I think eventually it will be easier to obtain parts in SMT
formats.  I think you should be able to do a pretty cool job making protos
on the right kind of pretinned protoboard along with wirewrap wire
interconnects.  I haven't really had to make proto's with SMT stuff, but
if I had all the parts, a complete pcb-based "kit" should go pretty
smoothly.  I envision such a solution when the SSM/CEM chips dry up to
extinction, for all the older synths out there.  One of those little CNC
router-based pcb-makers should prove useful.


Barry

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From: 	KARLTO at INVALID.ED.NTNU.NO
Sent: 	Friday, January 15, 1999 11:07 AM
To: 	SYNTH-DIY at MAILHOST.BPA.NL
Subject: 	Re: day job


With the current discussions on soldering SMD components, I'd like to
point out that as long as you have a good tip on your soldering station,
a set of good pliers, a magnifying glass and a steady hand, you can
probably work with everything except ball-grid arrays. But then, these are
only used in the REALLY big processors, DSPs and FPGAs, so...