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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
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In Reply to: Secrets to soldering tiny surface mount parts posted by Francois G on June 3, 2009 at 08:22:29:
I've been doing manual SMD work for about 20 years now. It's really not a lot harder to do than using wire, you just need to practice a little finesse.
My secret? An eye loupe! I use a 10 power one. I have terrible depth perception,as I have one farsighted eye and one nearsighted eye. With the eye loupe, I can see the solder joints the size of Texas, and it's REAL obvious whether you've got the component where you want it and whether you are making a good solder joint. The only thing better than the loupe is a microscope with a color camera and a good monitor, but that will set you back a grand or more.
Beyond that, use a good temp controlled iron with a reasonably small tip, NOT the smallest one you can buy, it will last you an hour before the tiny tip burns off!!, and keep your temperature down. I find that installing components, I'm generally at around 800 degrees on my Hakko 926. And you need a good pair of needle tip tweezers.
You have to find your own limits though. Mine are 0402 R's and C's, and leadless parts. I just can't handle them; I have an assembler friend who I pay $25 to do the really nasty little buggers for me.
So here's how I do the typical 2-lead chip resistor or cap: tin one board pad ONLY. The other pad should be flat and clean. Grab the part gently with the tweezers ( no death grip, or the part is going to shoot across the room, and you never see it again) and place it over the pads. Reheat the solder, and position the part. Now do the second pad, and use the solder SPARINGLY.
If you look at your work after you have both pads soldered, and you made a mess or blob or cold solder joint, use fine solder wick to clean it up. Turn your iron up to 850 or so, and use the iron to heat the joint through the wick. Be quick, and just take off a little of the solder til you get the hang of it. If you dwell too long, the heat will get conducted to the other end of the part, melt the solder joint and the part will come off on the wick. It may take a few tries, but once you get used to the principle it's easy.
Those are the basics. It's just a matter of practice from here on.
Oh, and I do recommend Chip Quik for removing parts. DigiKey carries it. It stays melted down to 100C or so, so you can blob it on all the leads of a quad 44 pin package, for instance, and it will stay molten all around the part so you can just lift the part off the board. Very cool.
Have fun!
Adam912.Out.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Secrets to soldering tiny surface mount parts - adam@denderapartners.com 08:56:59 06/03/09 (1)
- RE: Secrets to soldering tiny surface mount parts - Dave Garretson 11:42:55 06/03/09 (0)
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