[sdiy] Starting with SMT hand-soldering

[Adam Schabtach]

> 1) A couple of you mentioned multiple irons - is that for a variety of
tips
> or is there some mad two handed soldering technique you've got going. No -
> I'm serious.

I considered trying some mad two-handed method, but I have only one good
soldering iron. This is the most inexpensive rework tool I've found on the
market (which isn't to say that I did an exhaustive search):
http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_224629_-
1
They're not great but they do work. They're fine for removing 0805 and 1206
resistors and caps. (I tend to use 1206 because I have middle-aged eyes and
1206 is large enough that I can do most work without a magnifier. I use 0805
for decoupling caps since the smaller package is easier to place close to
the power leg of a chip.) The broad tips work fairly well for removing ICs,
although it requires a modicum of patience. You hold the tips against all of
the legs of the chip, wait a few seconds, give a little twist to see whether
the solder has melted. Once it does you just lift it off the board. 

In my experience this tool has only been necessary a couple of times, and
once was when I was modifying an audio interface and had to remove a whole
bunch of 0805 resistors. If you're building stuff and have budgetary
concerns, a package of Chip-Quik is a more economical approach. I did nearly
destroy a PCB by trying to remove a TQFP microcontroller by cutting its
legs, so personally I shy away from that least-expensive approach. (For
perspective, the board I nearly destroyed was worth 2x what a package of
Chip-Quick costs. Also note that the aforementioned hot tweezers won't work
for quad packages.)
 
> 2) Temperature controlled iron - nice if you've got it or vital?

Vital, but I would say that's true for through-hole work also. I don't use a
fancy SMT rig, though--just a Weller WES51 with several sizes of tips. I
used to use a fine chisel-point tip for just about all SMT work, but
recently I've been using a broader chisel tip for drag-soldering IC leads.

--Adam