AmateurRadio.com

My 1/2 built K2 is up for sale

Many decisions have been made here at VE3WDM in the past few months. We decided to downsize to a condo in so doing we moved to a very nice condo on the lake in Toronto. Many things had to be sold including ham radio related items. The shack had to be downsized but not shut down! Over the weekend I took another look at items I have that I'm not using. So some small items went up for sale and one BIG item that I have been mulling over for some time.....my 1/2 built K2 went up on the market today. This was a hard decision as I really enjoy kit building but with the small space it was just not going to work out. This is my second K2 and I did have a blast putting the first one together as well as 1/2 of this one. It's up on the Elecraft user group site. There was a heart stopping moment when one email asked me what the serial number was of the kit. No problem I packed it in three boxes, once opening them the contents were just the casing and the boards that I had 1/2 built.....WHERE ARE THE PARTS!!!! Did I toss them with the "junk". A fast check of  some boxes in the locker cleared up the question and all were parts were found safe and sound.

The dreaded toroid...

Getting ready for solder blob

A. Use a lighter to burn off the coating
B. Use sand paper.
C. The solder blob method.
D. Use a razor knife to scape the coating off.
E. I have heard some dipping the wire in var-sol....would not recommend it.  

I use the solder blob method and I have tried the sandpaper (find it just to rough for the delicate work that is needed) I have tried the lighter method but found on the smaller toroids I am not able to control the heat and end up burning off to much insulation. The razor blade scraping I have not tried and really don't want a razor knife that close to my fingers. SO....it's the solder blob for me!! I find if I put the toroid in an alligator clip to hold it I can in a very controlled fashion remove the right amount of enamel from the toroid.
I change the tip on my Weller soldering iron to a larger tip and use a .030 diameter solder. Most of my board work is done with a .020 diameter solder.

DO NOT SKIP STEP 7.....
7. Once the toroid wire has been stripped I use my DMM to check to make sure the coating has been removed and there is good continuity. Oh and for toroids that have more that one winding I check to make sure there is not shorts between the windings as well.

8. It's now time to solder the toroid in place and I find once the toroid is soldered in place before the leads are trimmed you can heat each solder blob up again and give each lead a LIGHT pull with a pair of pliers. This will allow the toroid to sit firmly on the board.

Some tips
1. Practice practice practice......it's like CW it's an art and over time you will get the idea and look forward to it.
2. Some toroids have nice rounded edges but be aware of those with sharp 90 degrees edges. These toroids can if your not careful remove the insulating coating from your wire and potentiality cause a short.

Using a paper and pencil to count

3. When  you have a toroid with 20 turns or more you can go buggy trying to check the turn count. What I do is lay the toroid on a sheet of paper and pencil make on the paper each turn. I then count the pencil marks and sometimes ticking them off as being counted.

4. Use two sizes of soldering tip's one (I use the Weller ETC 1/8 tip) for the solder blob used to melt the insulation off the wire. Then a thinner tip (I use the Weller ETR 1/16 tip) for soldering the toroid to the board.

ETR and ETC tips

Coming soon how to wind the bi-filar toroid and transformer toroid.

Oliver is keeping an eye on things

I was on the radio this afternoon and not much was on the WARC bands   (CW contesting on the other bands) it was time to spin my chair 180 degrees to the project desk. I am in the process of building another Elecraft K2 that when done will be put up for sale. This was supposed to be a winter project but the bands were busy and I was on the radio and not the soldering iron. Now the K2 build has become a spring project. A few years ago if I was asked about kit building I would not ever considered it....BUT...I have been bitten by the bug!! Along with my QRP and QRPp operating I also find kit building to be a very relaxing way to spend time. There are some kits which I have sold such as my Elecraft KX1 and

Control board completed Some tricky lead forming

LP-Pan. Funny thing is after building something you attach a personal ownership to it that over the counter commercial equipment does not have. I have sold many items purchased but not built and thought nothing of it (other than it was money to get another kit with...maybe time for kit builders anonymous). As for the kits when it came time to say goodbye to make some coin it took some thought before they were put up for sale.
As was said I am in the process of building another Elecraft K2 and I have another blog that deals with the build. I wanted to blog the progress but also highlight other areas such as toroid winding, what was needed to be a kit builder and so on. There are specific posts about the K2 build it self making mention of tricky sections of the build and how it was handled. It's now time to see if the bands have come alive!!

K1EL Winkeyer ready for action

For some time now I have wanted a stand alone keyer as well as one that integrated with my PC allowing me to change and update messages.  The Winkeyer USB is the perfect match as I am able to add 3 AAA batteries and take the keyer with me on outings or keep it at the desk hooked up to the PC via a provided USB cable. The unit comes as a kit with all SMD components already on the board so there is no worry about having to deal with super small parts and the soldering headache that goes along with it. The kit was shipped out and delivered very fast and very safely boxed for the ridge to my QTH. 

The first day of assembly

 The only thing that has to be downloaded is the instructions. I find this to be a fantastic way of doing things. If there are updates to the build then it's a simple update on the website and you are downloading the current assembly instructions. Take the time to print off the instructions that way you can check components off as you do the inventory.  Do yourself a favor and print the instructions in color as there are some great pictures to assist you. The kit went together very smoothly and KE1EL put thought into the order of  assembly. Follow the order and the kit

Battery holder

 building will be a smooth experience. Take your time building the unit, it's not a race as certain components such as USB connector, 1/8 jack and 4 way RCA jack should be mounted with care. This makes the final assembly of the two metal covers fit without any surprises.

Kit complete

Once the kit is done there are some checks to be done to make sure all is working well. Once that is done you are on your way to hooking up to your PC. Easy to follow documentation is provided instructing you how to have your PC recognize the keyer and what to do if things don't go as planned. The kit also comes with a CD containing programs that will allow you to program the keyer from your PC and download the messages to your keyer. Not to mention all the settings one could imagine for setting up a key as well. The only 2 issues I had with the kit and by no means are they show stoppers.
1. There is a 10k potentiometer and the shaft was just a bit to long and I had to trim it. This was only for looks as I did not like the knob extended away from the keyer.
 2. No hookup wire was provided to go from the potentiometer to the board. This is no big deal either as I did have the wire...but.....it would had been nice to include it in the kit.

Pot before mod

Pot after mod

About a month ago a new kit arrived and is still sitting waiting to be built. With some thought and over time I ended up selling my Logikit CMOS4 keyer that I built. I sold it not because it's a poor keyer but  being a stand alone keyer made it for me a hassle to program.  I missed just starting up the PC opening a program typing in what I wanted the keyer do and simply saving that sequence.  I do a lot of CW contests and have to keep changing the exchanges. With the CMOS4 keyer I was always taking out the manual and refreshing my poor memory with the proper sequence of buttons to push on the keyer to enter and save morse code in the CMOS 4 memory.
So I sold the Logikit keyer CMOS4 and Julie had purchased me the K1EL WKUSB keyer kit. I am familiar with the WKUSB keyer as some years ago I did purchase a built unit and it worked great. At the time it did seem to have some issues with my contest program N1MM. I ended up selling the unit and as they say hind sight is 20/20 and if I knew then what I do now I would still have it. This keyer has been around for some time now and improvements have been made. To hook it up to the PC is a simple USB cable along with some software and you are off to the races. To change the CW messages you open a program on your PC enter your new message then save to the key and that's it. You are able to enter four separate messages (just great for contests or DXepedtion contacts) The keyer can be connected to two rigs, my K3 and K2 can use the same unit without cable swapping. So back to the software for just one more moment.....not only can you program messages BUT there is a slew of custom settings you can enter such as spacing, weight and tone just to mention a very few extras. I hope this weekend to heat up the soldering iron and point it in the direction of this kit!!