I was thinking along the lines of Jan making them available to help support the publication. If I can get the higher voltage version working and performing well, lll do the same. I have to blame you for gettin me on this SMD kick. Kinda addicting once you start. So much performance in such a little package.
Slightly OT: Bruno Putzeys article with the free PCB in Vol 5 got me started in SMD. I've done a few tries and I must say, if you have the right tools (very good tweezers and fine soldering tip) it's not bad at all. Even very fine pitch ICs are relatively simple: just pile up solder, do a pass with solder wick and you get a perfect solder connection, no shorts at all!
jan
No glue, just tweezers and soldering iron, I wear glasses though so some might call that cheating? I only use magnifying lens for checking work if it's really fine pitch (or QFN type chip with no legs just pads under neath, done a few of them by hand but building a smt reflow oven to avoid doing that too often) I will get a camera and take a pic too. First test is with multimeter though if possible. SMT is fun and the only excuse IMO is illness/age that give you unsteady hands or poor eyesight.
I use a Goot PX501 which has special long-life tips (a must with silver solder) with 0.2mm radius.
Mini-Soldering Stations/ Soldering Controllers
Patrick
Mini-Soldering Stations/ Soldering Controllers
Patrick
No.
In high volume manufacture, some people use a epoxy-type of glue to fix the parts on the PCB (outside the solder pads) before they go into the reflow oven. That way, you can be sure that the part is fixed in position, thus minimising errors due to parts shifting when the solder paste gets fluid. My Sony SACD player for example uses this method for all the SMD parts.
But then people also use contact cement to glue wired caps onto PCBs, don't they ?
Supposedly to reduce microphony ???
Patrick
In high volume manufacture, some people use a epoxy-type of glue to fix the parts on the PCB (outside the solder pads) before they go into the reflow oven. That way, you can be sure that the part is fixed in position, thus minimising errors due to parts shifting when the solder paste gets fluid. My Sony SACD player for example uses this method for all the SMD parts.
But then people also use contact cement to glue wired caps onto PCBs, don't they ?
Supposedly to reduce microphony ???
Patrick
I like holding the part in place with weighted pointer and soldering with fine tip point, like EUVL has shown above. I prefer this over pretinning the surface, as I figure(perhaps incorrectly) that the pad is making direct contact with the part and is just being held in place by the solder. If you pretin it, it would seem that you have solder as your conductor(contact) at every point where you have a connection. Is it pointless to worry over such things, probably. But we are, fearless Diyers. For me, you can replace feerless with ignorant, if you so desire.
The solder will always (is applied correctly
) creep/flow/go between the part and the board, this is a good thing, the solder helps overcoming the metal-to-(different)metal potential. Due to the fact that there is a metal-to-(different)metal potential it is undesirable to have just a pressure contact.