Do you know anything about the manufacturing process? I always connect most of the benefits of surface mount with reflow soldering and pick and place machines.

Do you know anything about the manufacturing process? I always connect most of the benefits of surface mount with reflow soldering and pick and place machines. I doubt they used pick and place in 1972 for consumer goods, but maybe you can just have assembly line workers placing by hand before before the line runs through a reflow oven?