While i agree that it can be soldered with an iron i would highly
recommend basic SMD tools. Speeds up the process a lot and is more
gentle to the PCB. A hot air station costs from 50eur upwards, and
initially populating boards with paste is also MUCH faster than manual
soldering. If you are serious about it the right tools are always
worth the money.
ST
On Jan 30, 2008 9:50 AM, Dylan Smith <dyls@...> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, Eeks Sdfgvbsdfgggggggg wrote:
>
> > is it easier/cheapier to solder with a hot air gun or with a modified
> > cheap oven?
>
> I have only soldered SMD so far with a soldering iron - the same one I use
> for through hole, with the same bit (a 0.5mm pointy tip). This has worked
> fine right down to 0.4mm pitch LQFP (SSOP is 0.5mm pitch).
>
> SSOP's quite easy to do with a soldering iron. The square chips are
> trickier mainly because they require more care lining up since you have 4
> sides to get properly aligned on the tiny pads, and often aligning one
> side you end up putting the other side you carefully aligned out. A
> magnifying glass and a gentle touch with a small screwdriver is the best
> way I've found of getting a TQFP or LQFP properly aligned.
>
> > if you have SSOP and that kind of small ic's you have to use soldermask
> > to avoid a big soldermess don't you? well, you only have to buy a cheap
> > laminator (20-30€) and get some dry-film soldermask, expose it, cure it
> > and voila, doesn't seem to be very complicated
>
> No, you don't need a solder mask, and in any case, there's not likely to
> be any soldermask between pads on a 0.4mm pitch LQFP or similar.
>
> My method is to tack a couple of pins, then just 'drag solder' the rest
> not caring that some of the pins will bridge, then clean up with solder
> wick. The solder wick will suck up any solder bridges, but leave the
> solder that's attaching pins to pads.
>
> Have a look at the tutorials on the Sparkfun.com website, they show how
> you can hand solder as well as hot air solder.
>
> Passives down to 0603 size are actually faster to hand solder than through
> hole passives - no need to turn the board over, and no need to clip off
> lead ends! With passives, I put a small blob of solder on one pad, grab
> the part with tweezers, remelt the solder while moving the end of the part
> into the blob. Then remove tweezers and solder the other terminal.
>
>
>
>
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