If you're far enough along that you've got more than a couple of surface-mount parts (or even one IC), I highly recommend the use of a surface-mount oven. You can cobble one together using a toaster oven and an Arduino-based controller, but personally I wanted to make circuits, not learn how to make a surface-mount oven, so I purchased a T-962 oven off Amazon (there are many sellers of this item). It ranges from $300 to $500.
There are many modifications available on-line, including a complete firmware replacement that appears to fix a number of shortcomings in the original product. However, the only one I really felt was necessary was replacing the tape that holds the insulation together internally; from the factory, it's basically masking tape (paper), but it's very easy to replace it with aluminum duct-sealing tape, to avoid the campfire experience the first time you use it. Once you've done this, it seems to work quite well. I've used mine on several boards now, of sizes as large as 8 " x 5", and it's done a great job. I use only 63/37 tin/lead solder, and for this the built-in program #2 is perfect. Just as @gregebert described, either a paste mask or just a conservative drop of solder-paste-with-flux on each pad is all that's needed, and everything sort of self-centers when the solder mounts, due to the surface tension. ~~ Mark Moulding On Wednesday, December 30, 2020 at 10:35:10 AM UTC-8 gregebert wrote: > Reviving this thread... > > I've spent some of the holiday season using hot-air soldering for > surface-mount devices, and the results are far superior to hand-soldering. > With good solder paste (I'm using ChipQuick 63/37; there are several other > brands) and placing small dabs on solder pads with the included syringe. > You dont need to use a stencil; you probably will want one if you are doing > several builds of the same board AND you are going to mount all components > at the same time. > > If the PCB has good solder-masking, the solder paste will flow from the > masked area towards the pad when heated, so shorts are unlikely to occur > unless you used way too much paste. I've also seen some self-centering of > SMT parts while the solder is molten, so you dont need to hold the part > in-place while soldering as long as the airflow velocity from your hot-air > machine is low enough. > > BTW, I'm using a cheap (40 USD on Amazon) reflow device that holds > temperature quite well; adjustable airflow is a MUST-have feature. > > If you are fearful of doing SMT work because it looks too small, I suggest > you give it a try. Find a PCB from a discarded device and test it out > yourself. > > Thru-hole parts should still be soldered with a traditional hand iron. > > On Saturday, June 13, 2020 at 1:03:48 PM UTC-7 Bill Notfaded wrote: > >> Metcal 100% I'll never go back again. We use them at work to solder for >> space applications under scopes... Well I don't but they do in the >> factories. Since they turned me on and I bought a 5k series I'm totally >> sold. It's the bomb period! >> >> Bill >> > -- 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 view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/98971898-0cac-4d06-9555-a36ed3e1b079n%40googlegroups.com.
