The Kits and Parts “Organic 5Watter”
Yep … it’s an affliction. Someone comes out with a new QRP rig and, if reasonably priced, I gotta have one. I’m not sure what it is, but the truth of the matter is I enjoy building kits just as much as using them. To make things even worse, I’m not that great at building things. So, when I saw that Diz, W8DIZ, and the principal at Kits and Parts <http://kitsandparts.com>, was coming out with a new QRP rig named the 5Watter (5W), I got in line and ordered one. Serial No. 17 arrived a few days later. Photo A shows the contents of the kit. If you haven’t ordered a kit from Diz before, he’s kind of famous for literally “bagging” the parts in a brown paper bag. No different here. The brown paper bag contained five “sub-bags” which hold (going from left to right at the top of Photo A): 1) capacitors, resistors, diodes, 2) toroids, bypass capacitors, more diodes, 3) knobs, pots, switches and some hardware, and 4) crystals, toroids, wire and a few other small components. (Note that bag #4 has a “40” marked on it. This is because I ordered a version for 40 meters and that bag contains the band-specific parts). The bottom bag (bag 5) in Photo A is a two-compartment bag. The right side holds the printed circuit board (PCB) while the left side holds a number of hardware pieces for connecting things together, plus a few SMD (surface-mount device) parts.
Whoa! Surface Mount Parts?
Yes, the 5W kit does include four 8-pin SMD parts. Before you summarily dismiss this kit (and a bazillion other kits that now use SMD parts) as being too difficult to build, you need to ask yourself why you’re afraid of them. There are a number of videos on YouTube that address SMD soldering, and I kinda like this one: <https://tinyurl.com/y2zz7n5s>. He explains the different SMD packages and sizes, plus how to use a small-tipped soldering iron and/or hot air gun to solder SMD components. I’m two years younger than dirt, and if I can do it, so can you. Age is an excuse, not a reason, for avoiding SMD parts. I think you’ll find it is a lot easier than you think to use SMD parts.
I think it’s a good idea to solder the SMD parts at the start of the build because it’s easier to solder them when there are no other components nearby. Diz does include a small (sock-et-mounted) microcontroller (an ATTiny45) that handles the menu commands and keyer for the 5W. shows the board after I soldered the SMDs onto the PCB. As you can see, the board holds a lot of parts and that’s a good thing. After all, if you’re going to build a worthwhile radio, it’s going to take more than a
