I've done some hot plate reflow. Discrete components down to 0603 are straightfoward and easy to touch up with a soldering iron. Chips, on the other hand... I recently burned through three boards with a ESP8285 and a CP2102N on it. Never did get them to work.The main problem is not being able to figure out why afterward. I don't know if there were shorts or opens or if I heated them too long or if they exceeded their MSL rating or if my design was bad. For chips that don't have pads that extend up the sides, there is just no knowing if it worked or not, unless you break everything out so you can check for shorts and opens.
My successes (apart from discrete components and any chips that have legs, which are all pretty easy) include a LIS3DH (which is why I started with the reflow), USB micro connectors and a few others. Having pads on the PCB that extend out past the chip body gives some ability to visually inspect the joints and touch up with a soldering iron if necessary (as in, separating shorts - adding solder not so much!). Some kind of binocular magnifier is pretty much essential, and I use a pin to apply paste and a loupe afterward to inspect the results as far as I can. I'm wondering if getting solder masks made would be a good idea, but I'm not sure my ability to apply the paste would improve much. So for now I think I will restrict myself to smaller breakout boards for the really difficult chips until I get better yields! On Monday, August 14, 2017 at 8:29:53 AM UTC-4, Nick wrote: > > http://therandomlab.blogspot.ae/2017/07/halogen-floodlight-smt-reflow.html > <http://therandomlab.blogspot.ae/2017/07/halogen-floodlight-smt-reflow.html> > > Genuine "outside the box" thinking... > > Nick > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/f5818cc2-6ad9-4c84-a633-2eac4c66eb20%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
