SMD Work

[garfield at pilgrimhouse.com]

On Thu, 12 Mar 1998 18:06:23 -0800, Sandy <sganz at wgn.net> wrote:

>You can do SMD too -

Ahh, the broad perspective that youth provides. B)

It's sure wonderful if your hands are nice and rock-steady. At the rate
that wire-wrap, and then thru-hole has/is disappearing, I expect I will
have to use a micro-manipulator and one of them tiny rework hotair flow
guns before I depart this dirtball.

Once upon a time, even chip geometries were still big enough that you
could probe metal runs and vias on a piece of silicon under the
microscope. We had this one guy that was so adept at putting the probe
on the metalization run, and then tapping the probe station to vibrate
the probe tip, and cut open the run, that we called him the "solid-state
surgeon". Won't be long, and we'll be there, and then even the
steadiest, youthful hands will be like an old guy's with Parkinson's.
It's all just a matter of time and degree.

Geez, I feel OLD. Where's my cane, I need to get up and get another shot
of Geritol.

Garfunkle

P.S. But I sure do love them tiny lil parts and how much smaller you can
build things. Guess every geek loves miniaturization. Now where's that
dang hearing aid. Heh.