SMD Soldering

[Hungry for Ham - VA3ASE]

Hi friends,

I'm working on a project that requires soldering and reworking some small surface-mount (SMD) parts. I'm curious if other members have any wisdom to share on this.

I've soldered some mid-sized SMD parts by hand before using a regular iron (apply solder to one pad, hold part against pad with tweezers, reflow solder, solder other side). However this project involves some much smaller components (think 0805 size) and ICs.

I was reading about hot-air stations. I really like my Weller iron but a Weller hot-air station is far beyond my budget ($600+ from what I saw). Cheap hot-air stations can be found on Amazon between $50-100 which I could probably manage if it's actually worthwhile. Anyone ever used one before?

Will a hot air station be any easier than using a traditional iron? I've also seen methods using a hot plate or oven. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Thanks,

Alex VA3ASE

[bryn epp]

Alex,

I solter 0805, 0603, SOIC, TSOP, SO23-3, SO23-5 etc with the solder on one pad method above. 

Small gauge solder and a good tip are a must for small er pitch items.

good tweezers help alot.

Primarily I only use hot air for component removal.

73,

Bryn, VE3VOD

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[Steve Brady]

Hi Alex

Have done a fair bit of SMD soldering over the years. 

From my experience:

• 90% of SMD can be done with a good fine tipped iron. 
• Solder paste and hot air is quicker for that 90%; except devices with less than 10leads..then it’s quicker to use an iron. 
• Hot plates are good for one sided pcbs and can “unglue” small traces if not careful
• Really dense lead packages will get solder paste and then fluxed...I’ll then just touch the tip of each lead with an iron to pull back solder bridges.   I’m at the point that I need a good magnifier (microscope) for this now. 
• I will almost always use hot air to remove parts though I will sometimes snip dense lead packages and then scrub with an iron to collect leads. 

Pick up a a temp controlled iron with lots of tip choices. Also get a temp controlled hot air rework gun. 

You’ll do fine for most.  

If you get in to BGAs (ball grid arrays) then you might consider a “toaster oven hack”. 

De srv

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 29, 2021, at 12:41 PM, Hungry for Ham - VA3ASE <va3...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Patrick]

That's one of the things I like about the iron we've discussed previously, it gives you very fine temperature control, and the fine and angled tips work well with most SMD work I've come across.  It's my go-to for everything I've done.

I generally only use hot air for removal, though typically it's just a digital temp controlled heat gun from Canadian Tire lol...  Most of the removals I've been doing recently have been on motorola/zebra RFID reader boards, and they have a really good ground plane so anything tied to it will sync way more heat than typically is put out by the rework stations.

p

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[VA3ASE]

Excellent feedback, thanks guys!

I have a selection of fine tips for my iron (Weller WES51 temp controlled station) and I picked up some ultra-fine solder on Saturday. I'll try assembling the boards / components with what I've got and see how it goes.

Cheers,

Alex VA3ASE

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