[sdiy] My frustration as a technician..

[nvawter at media.mit.edu]

Quoting "cheater00 ." <cheater00 at gmail.com>:

> I really hope an audio company will start a trend of using SMT parts
> to cut down the cost (and enable pick-and-place rather than those
> human-operated, half-automatic stapler stations), but including
> through-hole footprints for each part in case you want to modify or
> fix things.

Ah yes, I'm really in love with the current trend of CPU breakout boards...
They take care of the only thing that I need help with: SMT soldering.
Yes, I can solder SMD, but it takes me a long time and is error-prone  
for me, even though my vision is 20/20 and i have decent tools such as  
a stereo magnifier.

For example, this is a board I've posted about before which is  
inspiration for the one I'm currently designing:   
http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/353

Oh crap, I just saw that it's out-of-stock and marked 'Legacy'.  That  
was fast.

I really don't understand why people need things to be "massively  
small."  I believe it's just a fetish, up there with shininess.  I  
feel comfortable committing to things that are large if I know I'm  
going to use them for many years.