Soldering Techniques

20 August 2019 Link



Equipment

  1. Soldering Iron, with a clean good tip to transfer heat efficiently
  2. Solder paste
  3. Flux Pen
  4. Board cleaning wire mesh (Steel Wool)
  5. Good pair of forceps to place stuff

Cleaning the board

  1. If a home made board then make sure the board is clean by rubbing off any oxidation (dull gray coating) by a wire mesh (scotch brite kind)

Component Placement

  1. Put some solder paste on the component pad and smear it around. Don't worry about bridges when it melts it clings to the copper.

Reflow soldering

  1. Use a broil oven. Preheat it for 15 minutes and the metallic top becomes hot place the boards on the top to preheat them.
  2. Place the pre-heated boards inside until the solder paste becomes shiny and melts.
  3. Leave for 5-10 more seconds and then take out.

Soldering Surface Mount Devices

  1. Fix the board so that it doesn't move either with tape or something else.
  2. Make sure all the pads are clean, if not then clean it with steel wool.
  3. Put some flux on one pad and then put a dab of solder on the surface to evenly cover the surface of that pad.
  4. Make sure the Surface mount component pin which should connect on that pad is clean.
  5. Put some flux on the pin and place the component carefully so that pin is over the solder covered pad and then just touch the iron to attach the pin.
  6. Check if all pins align. If not then reheat the pin and then adjust the component to align all pads. Don't keep the heat on the pin for more than 10 seconds.