On Wed, 17 Aug 2005, The Old Crow wrote:
> I used to reflow SMT board in a toaster oven, but working with solder paste is such a pain. I've discovered it is so much easier to just use a "drag-solder" tip for even 0.5mm pitched pins on a quad flat pack. SOICs are easy. I use the heated forceps for Rs and Cs. I can build two boards that way in the time it takes to oven reflow one.
Yeah, for larger pitches at low chip counts that can be faster. Bake time
is the same for one to ten parts ;) The trick is to use the paste syringe
with a super fine tip, lay down a straight line over the pad row, center
the part, and then bake. The nifty thing about reflow solder is that you
don't have to be ∗to∗ precise as surface tension will correct small
misalignments.
Anyway, this thread should probably move to alt.motm.smt.assembly ;)
--mikes