|
Two fairly lengthy sessions and one shorter one resulted in my installing most of the front half of the RF board's diodes, transistors, and capacitors (all 68 of them!). |
The instructions for stuffing the diodes and transistors emphasized the need to minimize lead length by getting the components as close to the board as possible. For all of these, I soldered one lead, then reheated it while pushing in the component, then soldered the remained leads.
With some practice, I'm getting better at forming the leads for the tiniest capacitors. They really need to be bent out at 90° from the body of the component, and then 90° again. The trick is to get the two "down" bends the correct distance apart; I'm getting better at it with practice.
I also installed the two components in the vicinity of the thermistor board that I was concerned about. Q19 was not a problem at all; it's very close to the thermistor board, but did not touch. Installing C87 did require, as the instructions suggested, bending the thermistor board slightly in the direction of U6. I was able to install C87, but its body just touches one of the soldered connections on the bottom of the thermistor board. That should not be a problem electrically, but I put a little piece of electrical tape between them anyway (visible in the photo). If I ever do this again, I'll really try to minimize the amount of solder I use on the thermistor board.
