Why is Elecraft only offering a “No-Soldering” version of the K3 kit?
The K3 is a modern, high-performance radio with many features never seen in this size or price class. Of necessity, about 60% of the components are surface mount (SMD). In order to ensure consistency in performance at this level of integration, we must 100% test all of these surface-mount components after installation. But such testing is very difficult unless all of the components and connectors are present at manufacturing test time. So, we elected to create a modular, no-soldering kit: all of the modules are pre-assembled and pre-tested. By implication, all toroids are pre-wound, too 🙂 By pre-testing the modules, we can guarantee that any K3 — whether purchased factory assembled or built as a kit — will have identical performance. Modular kit builders will find the K3 very easy to build, yet not without effort: there are over 100 individual pieces of hardware, many modules, sheet metal panels, bezels, knobs, etc. The builder will also perform a number of firmware-assisted alignme
