Re: SMD soldering (off topic)

On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 10:26:35AM -0500, Tom Blough scratched on the wall:
> I know some of you out there are hardware guys and were wondering if anyone
> had any pointers on hand soldering surface mount devices.  I'm going to make
> a few boards to play with some of the 1-wire devices and have never done
> SMDs before.
> 
> I'm thinking of supergluing (any problems with the superglue electrical
> wise?) the chip down, fluxing the leads, and then heating and applying
> solder to the pads (0.015 tip and solder).
> 
> Will this work?  Any other methods for hand soldering?

  If you, or someone you know, is into amateur (ham) radio (or you have
  a good community/universtiy library near by), ARRL's QST magazine has
  had several articles about this in the past two or three years. (I
  assume you are in the United States.)
  
  In fact, the last issue (Feb 2004) has an article called "Homebrewing--
  Surface Mount Style".  Much of this article talks about using a
  Dremel tool to cut slots into a full-copper PCB as a way to make
  boards that can be easily used with SMDs.  There are some tips on
  soldering, however.  They mostly seem to recomend tinning the pads
  (a bit thick) first and then using tweezers and your iron to "tack"
  the parts in.  This technique would seem to be easier then traditional
  means of soldering parts, as it "only" requires two hands, and if you 
  make a mistake you have a chance of removing the part and starting 
  over (unlike with superglue).

  I should quickly point out that I've never actually *done* this.
  Although I've messed around with enough hardware to be dangerous, I'm
  definitly a software guy.  Me with a soldering iron falls into the
  "Be ware of programmers with screwdrivers" catigory.  Still, the
  articles (both this one and previous ones) have been interesting
  reads, and you might find them useful.

   -j

-- 
                     Jay A. Kreibich | Integration & Software Eng.
                        [email protected] | Campus IT & Edu. Svcs.
          <http://www.uiuc.edu/~jak> | University of Illinois at U/C
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