Quoted from CaptainNeo:lots of added components. I wish he wouldn't do surfaced mounted stuff. Makes it a lot harder to fix this crap on your own. Should make them serviceable for years down the road. Things like this are going to cost $100+ dollars down the road if JJP goes under or these things are not made anymore.
Getting harder to find a lot of contemporary components that are not surface mount anymore.
Not that surface mount is extremely more difficult to work on, mainly requires some newer tools and supplies.
Though I definitely can sympathize. I grew up in the age of the 'through hole' style of components, and tried
to dodge the shift to surface mount for as long as I could... But looking at a lot of suppliers these days, if you
still can get the part in non-surface mount you may end up paying 3-5X the price of the surface mount version.
The 'curse' of the move to automated 'pick & place' assembly systems I guess...
San Jose, CA
