Re: gEDA-user: Soldering fine pitch chips

[Karel Kulhavy <clock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Mar 10, 2006 at 01:39:57PM -0500, Dan McMahill wrote:
> Randall Nortman wrote:
> 
> >Overall, reflow soldering is much faster.  You spend a long time
> >placing each component, but then the soldering itself happens for the
> >whole board at once, in just a few minutes.  The process is remarkably
> >forgiving of placement errors with these fine-pitch chips -- the
> >surface tension of the solder will pull the chip into alignment, so
> >long as it is approximately correct.  0603 components actually give me
> >much more problems on those boards, since they have little motivation
> >to stay put once I've placed them, and are more likely to pull out of
> >alignment during soldering if one end melts before the other.  I'm not
> >brave enough to have tried hand placing 0402 chips yet.
> 
> for 0402's I'm still just hand soldering them...  I'm curious, when 
> you've been doing the toaster oven reflow, doesn't the solder paste help 
> keep your 0603's in place?
> 
> BTW, if anyone has an air compressor around, you can get these nifty 
> solder paste applicators which is basically a syringe with a foot pedal 
> that will deliver a small amount of solder paste when you press the 
> pedal.  Makes for quick application of the paste if you're doing it by 
> hand instead of with a stencil.

Can't you do a vacuum pipette with it too? I am bored with parts
shooting from my tweezer across the room.

CL<
> 
> -Dan
> 
>