On 23 Jan 2012 at 0:01, Dave McGuire wrote:
I came to like SMT work far, far more than
through-hole very shortly
after that, though. Now I dread through-hole; it just takes too damn
long and is generally a pain compared to SMT.
Heh. Must be a generational thing. I remember many years ago, my
late father wanting to recapture some of his experiences and
construct his own receiver. So he went to the local electronics
dealer and came back with some 14AWG bus wire, a spool of 24AWG
magnet (enambeled) wire, a 1G4G and an Eby surface-mount octal socket
(he was upset when he discovered that UV201s were no longer made), a
No. 6 dry cell and a couple of 45V "B" batteries. He'd already
selected and shellacked a nice pine board and was working on
fabricating his own book-type "condenser". It worked, and I suppose
it was a real work of art, but I thought the use of bare #24 wire was
*so* retro and campy, compared my up-to-date use of point-to-point
using hookup wire and tie strips...
We're fast coming to a time, I suppose when through-hole PCB
construction will seem just as dated--and 5V logic will seem
curiously power-hungry although RTL was 3V, so at least we've been
here before.
--Chuck