SMD soldering by hot air
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2024
- Reflow soldering of resistors, capacitors, diodes, controller, and other surface mounted components using a hot air gun. This is a prototype PCB of a custom designed mechanical keyboard, GH60.
Ignore all the 'I was soldering when you were hanging off your mommy's apron strings' know it alls. I too have been at this for a few decades difference being I continue my education into the state of the art. The low melt paste is fine and you're preparing the pads so I see no problems with your methods of attachment. I will suggest a few things, though.
For example your controller IC. Standard flux paste on a swab across all pads and then drag solder it. You can find drag solder demos all over YT. It's easy to learn and achieves ISO standards. Learning this method will cut assembly time down. You want to get your assembly time down.
For testing your keys you also might find switching your DMM into continuity mode and using the probes to be faster than moving the tweezers about. This will cut down testing time.
Lastly, as a designer/builder consider real world working environment. USB mini and micro are prone to damage in use. Even with careful use. Consider a tiny drop of epoxy under the port before placement. You may have to experiment with this and use a higher melt standard solder on the ground lugs. The goal however is to achieve a robust jack mount less prone to breakage.
You have a lot of skill at your age. Take the advice of the elders but take it with a grain of salt. A lot of them don't continue to educate in the state of the assembly materials art. The materials you're using are designed to be used just as you are. They don't understand that the majority of CE on the shelf today is built using these exact materials and methods, only by machine.
Lastly, a lot of PCB fabs will offer to pick, place, and wave solder your parts for additional setup fees. Might not be enough product to merit the additional costs on this project, but something to consider for high volume. They offer this in stages so you can opt for the SMD and then you just have to inspect and add the through hole parts yourself. You may find yourself in a position where this makes sense in the future.
Edit: And definitely ignore people like Barry who come by 4 years later and drop 2 dollar words during the apocalypse and point out autocorrect errors at 3am instead of just offering some encouragement to a kid. They’re absolutely part of the problem. ;)
+monosurge I simply must take the time to applaud your comment! Bravo!
+monosurge I have to also say... probably the most constructive comment on this video and no bullshit ego or douchebaggery.
+Nathan Kopilec Simple words from a simple man.
+Michael Snyder Must have struck a chord with you.. But I wasn't in any way implicitly singling you out with respect to "douchebaggery". I happen to own a company which develops automation equipment, motion control equipment, and tooling. I hold multiple degrees in mechanical, electrical, and controls engineering, and have been studying synthetic chemistry for quite a few years. If that makes me simple, I hope the rest of the world follows suit. There's also nothing I hate more in the world than the many pricks who profess some grand possession of knowledge, but are either unwilling to share it or are unable to do so without being a prick. I didn't need the help from the video.. I just happened to watch it, but I appreciate people who offer help and experience in a constructive manner. Those who are simple can be taught. Those who bathe in their own ego are hopeless.
+Nathan Kopilec Very well said! The most insecure dogs, bark the loudest.
Tnx for not putting an unnecessary music in the background.
This isn't a bad start for people who want to learn, but here is the more proper way to solder using the paste and hot air method without having to waste time tacking on the IC.
First, and I don't see very many soldering tutorials say this, but clean your board and your component before soldering. The solder will not stick to dirty surface. Simply just dab an acid brush (or soft bristled tooth brush into some isopropyl alcohol.
Flux, yes there is flux in the solder paste, but placing flux on the area you just cleaned, keeps it cleaned.
After that, just place the component (IC) on the board and apply the paste across the legs as he did here. The solder will pull the part onto the pads on the board, just as you see when he did the caps and resistors.
And as always, clean the flux residue afterwards. But more importantly, stay safe!
Cheers
He tagged the ic to the board by two legs first so that he could melt the solder paste on one side of the ic at a time without it going out of alignment. That way he didn't have to use a massive nozzle on the hot air gun and heat the whole ic to 200+ degrees C. And by the way Americans, we British correctly pronounce the word solder not sodder! hehe!
+Dan Davenport Hi Dan, go to dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/solder. In America Solder is pronounced differently than in England, just depends on where you were brought up. Either way is correct.
+Gerald Godbee So...according to how I hear that...in England they hold things together with soda. ;-)
The American pronunciation seems to have a silent L. The way the English pronounce it I guess it should be spelt soleder. A lot of American pronunciations are much more consistent than English ones. I don't think we are more correct really I just think it sounds funny so I pointed it out.
Anderson D you probably didn't watch the whole video.
The solder paste is amazing. The components are dragged into the correct position by hot air while solder paste is melting.
How things have changed! Back in the day we were taught to solder transistors, diodes and ICs quickly so as to not overheat them. Now those things are left literally smoking hot after the hot air is directed at them. They must be built to withstand this of course, but still to me it is odd how those little components can take so much heat. Thanks for posting.
corisco tupi The smoke you are seeing in this video is from the solder paste. The parts are not getting as hot as you think they are.
+corisco tupi I used to wonder about that too, but the boards go through an oven when they are soldered at the factory.
This video helped me perform my first hot air soldering project. Thank you.
you have the steady hands of a surgeon. I could never do that.
+Colin Riley just hold your breath while soldering.
wow .. what patience! Thanks for taking the time to set it up with such a zoom level to show every detail. I learned a lot... particularly about working a lot more slowly! ;-)
i know im randomly asking but does someone know a way to get back into an instagram account..?
I somehow lost the password. I love any help you can give me!
@Santiago Edwin Instablaster =)
@Kamdyn Brock thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and I'm waiting for the hacking stuff atm.
Looks like it's gonna take quite some time so I will get back to you later when my account password hopefully is recovered.
@Kamdyn Brock It did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy!
Thanks so much you saved my ass !
@Santiago Edwin you are welcome =)
So many jerks that "I know how to do it" and "I'm in business long before you were born". But few commenters really understand what is important and what is not important when doing home soldering. It's the area when industrial experience may be very irrelevant because the process is human-controlled and you can always fix things like bridge or dry joints. This is not the case in a "big" production that does not tolerate many things. What's important is at the end you got a well-soldered board with no soldering defects. The only thing I would notice is that I'm not sure that the main IC wasn't overheated. Looks like you use very high temperature. But for digital schemes this is less relevant.
+Alexandre Kandalintsev No such thing as a "dry joint", ,"cold joint" yes. Good technique whether at work or at home, always trumps shitty poor quality that can render your "repaired" electronics useless. I was a hobbyist first and when I started working professionally in electronics I had to unlearn a lot of the " bad' habits" that were passed down to me by other hobbyists. I was encouraged to try things my way to see the results then try it my mentors way to see the difference. Much of what I learned on the job, I applied as a hobbyist. Industrial experience is never irrelevant. Whether reworking one piece or 1000 pieces, the process applied manually is still the same.
+Michael Snyder are you qualifying these joints as poor?
+Alexandre Kandalintsev I'm not qualifying any joints at all.
+Michael Snyder why are you ignoring the quality aspect? Only the "QC" can tell if the tech process good or not. To me, the visual inspection and the final result shows this guy knows what he is doing.
Anyway, I believe skills are by far the most contributing factor to the quality. You can make bad joints even with good chemicals and equipment. Or you can do a good job even if "something is not right".
Good tools are half the job.
Hi,
after soldering SMD parts this way for a few years I recently tried some freehand solder paste. Standard high melting temperature paste was applied roughly with the tip of tweezers. No stencil was used and the paste bridged the pads before reflow. The parts were put in place and then reflowed with a hand-held hot air tool. Although the hot air tool was a bit fancy something simple should work just as well.
Surface tension sorts it all out! All the boards worked with no shorts and looked like they had been reflowed on the SMD line. The LEDs with hidden pads underneath even worked.
Have Fun.
What size paste did you use in this video ?
Do not forget the preheating, it's very important ! A temperature step is required depending on the nature of the welding alloy you are using. In your case, the tin has melted, the contact is established but the welding will be very fragile in time. Often people do not understand why their circuit no longer works !
How do you pre-heat?
@michelfrance75 Do just preheat only the board or the chip and other components too?
@@bleak0218Pre-heating is not thát important in some cases and this is probably one of them. Preheating is usually only done/necessary when a part needs to removed or soldered and the PCB features a few very heavy grond planes, dissipating a lot of heat from the pads that are to be heated for desoldering, rework or soldering.
Ceramic capacitors also tend to be prone to risks of thermal stress and can require pre-heating (look up the manufacturers' datasheet on this).
But how bad it can get and how long it will take before failure occurs also depends on other factors: thermal stress AFTER soldering and during intended use of the assembly also greatly affects overall lifetime. As with everything, there are standards that give some indication on expected lifetime when parts are stressed beyond their stated limits.
Especially ceramic capacitors and them being prone to the risks of thermal stress is why FT-types (Flexible Termination) types are becoming ever more common. Even in small sizes, manufacturers found a way to incorporate a flexible barrier between the actual outside-terminal and inner layers, so it is far less prone to problems caused by thermal stress.
Ofcourse, these are more expensive, but can seriously impact reliability.
If you want to preheat, you usually pre-heat the area of a board where you will be reworking, removing or soldering components. Don't restrict heat to a small area, you want to avoid thermal stress to the PCB and the parts being blasted with hot air.
But to be honest, I would forget about soldering these parts by hot air and just use a gull wing tip in a soldering iron and flux instead. The flux takes care of the wetting of the solder, the gull wing tip retains a small amount of solder in the hollow section and by dragging it along the pins of an IC or capacitor or other component, the cleaning action of the flux will make the solder want to get to the pad and component. But surface-tension of the solder inside the hollow cup of the tip will also make sure that exactly the right amount of solder is left on the connection.
You can do complex fine-pitch IC's in just 10 seconds once you get the hang of drag soldering with a gull wing tip and once you've used one for the first time (and you have used a normal tipped iron before) you will wonder why you didn't buy such a tip earlier...
Don't be mad but i'd rather solder it by hand with soldering iron. It would be much quicker. If You are not confident of stiffnes or stressless of solder You can reflow it with hot air. BUT in a way You do it (each side apart) You put as much stress in chip as while hand-soldering it. You should heat whole chip at a time. Anyways, that is preety nice that someone does something nice. Keep up!
I have learned so much in thes few minutes of watching a master at work, i hope to one day be able to complete such intricate soldering by hand...
That's patience!! Got to love SMD technology.
I always solder chips and larger packages with an iron and standard solder. I found that to be alot more efficient than applying paste to their pads. You either have to be really precise when applying it or rework the joints (lose legs, bridges, ..) afterwards. If you pull the iron along the legs (not across) away from the chip, you end up with nearly no bridges. Provided you didn't add a ton of solder.
For all the small ass components such as LEDs, resistors and capacitors I use paste, too. It's just to tedious to put them on with an iron.
Funny ;) I almost never use paste anymore since I invested in a gullwing tip for my soldering iron. Got the first experience with such a tip at work. I knew how to use such tips, so when I used it how I should, I got this strong feeling like 'why on earth didn't I get myself one sooner!?'
I can get LED's resistors and capacitors done quicker with a gullwing tip than with paste and hot air, as you just don't need the paste and wait for the hot air to heat up everything to the point the tin liquifies (and, having recently acquired my IPC certification on soldering (never knew you could have a 5-day, mostly theoretical training on that subject...) it's good practice to have a first round of heat at lower temperature, to get the solvents to evaporate before heating up to the point where the tin turns into a liquid.
Looks good. Not for everyone it takes a fair amount of patience and a good steady hand.
From the sound that you rework station is making I can tell that you did not remove the pump screw at the buttom of the machine. the screw keeps the pump seceure during shiping but it creates metal to metal contact with the body of the station. If you remoe it the pump will be secured by just rubber feet and wont make much sound.
i found this video so pleasant to watch components are being soldered!
only me?
at 4:53
I have to say that your skills with the solder paste are excellent.
Because from what I've seen, some guy just smack the paste with a toothpick
If you are going to make a lot of those keyboards you might want to consider buying an inexpensive pick and place machine with all the diodes you have to place on each one as well as make a silkscreen for solder paste. Good job and nice video.
yeah you could also get a mylar stencil.
thank you for informing me about solder paste. I never knew that it existed. All of the other SMD soldering videos just use resin solder with resin flux.
Frank
Very useful video ,It provides a real value .Don't pay attention to bad comments ,Jealousy is a human nature .
Thanks for this video! I just soldered my first SMD part (TSSOP-28) and removed the bridges in under a minute this way.
Your videos are very clear, and you do a great job of explaining and showing what you are doing. Thanks.
To date the best SMS soldering video I have seen and learned from. No ego building or BS'ing. Keep up the great videos!
I like they way the surface tension of the solder paste aligns the parts as it begins to flow. Just got my first hot air tool from Asia and forgot it was going to need a 220v outlet at my bench. Of course I could just modify the stepdown transformer on the rather large wallwart to make operating voltage from the 110V mains. I will have to look into that :-)
Instead of alcohol and a towelette, when I was in school we used canned contact cleaner and a small paintbrush with the bristles trimmed very short (to make them more stiff). We'd spray, brush and spray a 2nd time to rinse. It dries ultra fast.
You do such fine and detailed work! With such a positive attitude. You will go far in life in whatever you do. It was a pleasure watching your video.
Found this quite interesting, having never done this type of soldering before.
That is a thick tip on that iron for such fine work. I've always filed mine down to needle-fine points for this sort of work (and yes, I have hand-soldered SMT components plenty of times... it just takes a really steady hand, small tip, and a lot of patience)
Ican't do this...because my hand will tremble
Never file solder point down, you will damage the finish and it will not accept solder and oxidize. Worst thing you can do to a new tip is file it, sand it or ground away the plating.
MicroRCFiend
Nothing wrong with filing down a soldering tip, it's just a lump of copper, the thing you have to remember is to file it cold, then wrap solder round the tip you have just filed, then as the iron heats up, it will melt the solder that you wrapped round it , coating the tip with solder before it gets hot enough to oxidise the tip
The solder sticks to the coating, if you file the coating away the solder will not stick. I have done it several times. I would love to see a tutorial of the technique you speak off or any reference to it online I presume you can point me to?
@@TheDeadlyVideo if you need to file a tip then it is the wrong tip.
please can you add everything you use in the video description
thanks
Yes please!
@@johnacove Brand of soldering paste and that pen thank you
With a good iron and flux you can solder even SOICs or TQFPs. PACE is one of them for instance. But with hot air soldering appears more accurate
I would've never expected in my life to see an 8 year old thumbnail of an Atmega32U4 as some rare unobtanium.
It's not unobtanium at all: it's still in production, even 2 years after your comment ;)
@@weeardguy They where all out of stock, back when I made that comment, all thanks to the pandemic...
@@timmy7201Ah yes, know the feeling.
@@weeardguy Bought 500 Atmega's 328pb's, as backup for a project back in 2020... Still have about 400 of those in stock till this day :-/
great demonstration of SMD soldering cheers
Thanks for the great video,but more explanation about heat gun and soldering iron temperatures,flux and paste used,etc.
Using a soldering paste stencil is the best solution. But in cases like this, where the board is too big and the full stencil would be impractical from a cost and use perspective, getting a stencil for individual components is a good solution. So you have a stencil for the big multi-leg chip only, and any other component where it is difficult to get a proper application of paste. You do those complex components with a stencil first and then the other components like resistors by hand. And if you are hand soldering SMD's, don't be a hero, use 1206 size components where possible since they are easy to put paste down, pick up and place, plus you can actually read the codes on the components.
Thank you for this. I watched the whole thing. I learned a lot!
Like that ua-cam.com/video/zrQ2Ew8uKv8/v-deo.html
Dude thank you, I learned how to access my continuity tester on my multimeter from this video lol...of all the things i could have learned.
I come to videos like this to learn from the experts in the comments. I'm not entirely sure WHY experts watch videos like this
To learn more than they already know. Nobody ever knows everything.
Actually to stop beginners from making mistakes.
saiiiiiii1 ,I don’t think it is the business of trolls to step in and reply like ass hats. This isn’t commercial manufacturing.
Love the flat black mask, she's a beauty. Great video.
Open source FTW!
I am a TV Tech of 40 plus years I think this man did a good job
Of what materials he has to work with.Hot air tool must have been at a low setting otherwise the smd componants would have blown off the board.
Nice Video
This is incredible. Good job.
IT is pretty relaxing to watched this :D
My stress levels went up and my dog started to bark when he missed the pads, created a bunch of bridges and had to resolder the first IC.
I think because he doesn't have opposable thumbs himself and can't use tools it makes him angry to see humans use them inefficiently.
Great demo! Seems like you are an expert. Would you mind sharing the materials used?
Thanks in advance!
I hold the IC at the correct position by pressing it vertically with the rubber eraser on the back end of a pencil. Works like a charm. The trick is not to use tweezers.
Loved this video!I wished that you would have gave more detail as to the firmware but still liked this.
So wait, your "solder paste" just magically has no bridges... I need that at work, I use air as well as an iron, with leaded wire. I was trying to figure out what you were doing as you put the stuff on, I was screaming out "NO! You can't bridge that part!". It's a great video, thank you for all of the tips, I hope to start some projects of my own soon, and need all the tips I can get. First step: Find that magical Soldering paste...
Pretty cool. I've never heard of solder paste, but I'm glad I came across your video. I'm a programmer, but I want to start making some custom components for testing.
The reason you had bridges on the right side is you put solder on that side too much toward the IC and less toward the pads. As a result, the solder paste wasn't separated by the solder mask that helps separate solder. But nice video.
I have a few questions I think very important.
1) What temperature you set?
2) How I can be sure that the components are not overheated and damaged?
Also good to know what soldering station used, what solder paste, air gun diameter.
Thank you.
Still haven't got an answer
still
Still...
Still :)))
still....
Amazing never seen before how smd boards are build on.
This is the slow, manual, one-component-at-a-time method. Industry uses robots for "Pick-and-Place," then "Wave Solder" to solder the whole board in a few seconds.
By the way, people that specialize in operating Pick and Place and Wave Solder machines don't make a lot of money. So, the slow, manual method is interesting if you want to do Electronics as a hobby around the house. But better to keep working on that violin for a better chance at making big money.
Great video, thought soldering MCU’s with such a soldering-friendly pin pitch and LPC is child’s play. For my personal projects sometimes I use these criteria for MCU selection, that way is much less of a hassle to work with.
The paste seems to have been linked below, and the melting point is in the datasheet of said paste. It happens to be 361°F (183°C). As for the blowing power, that is another good question on its own.
I just ordered a tube of this paste and will be making my own video. I will let the temp and air power be known.
I wish my soldering flowed as nicely as yours does here!
The whole thing is a silicone pad so the heat doesn't burn my table. That mesh is some kind of heat resistant material embedded inside the clear silicone.
I have same smd soldering process using iron box method simple and easy to use .
use of kapton tape can aide with positioning of smd components when hand soldering.
What heat and air flow are you using along with what paste? I tried to use a new one I purchased and the paste seemed to dry up without flowing!!
Thanks for the video.
u can do all that with a regular heat gun. im a electronics tech for 21+yrs and worked on every amp ,pc anything with a cord and never failed
nice !!! your video is The Best....The Clear...The Proper....The Longest....
They make a stencil for the paste. You spread it like silkscreen. You can do the paste in 10 seconds
thanks for the tips. please consider muting or lowering the level when using power tools.
A few things... I noticed you had a bit of smoke during the hot air re-work... might want to turn the heat down a bit, also you can be liberal with the most of the solvents you use to clean the board and it might be a good idea to let the solvent dry before applying heat as the heat causes the solvent to vaporize and you dont want to be breathing that in or start a fire (not that im telling you from experience or anything...) Otherwise, I like the vid, good job.
If you can, get a mini wave tip for your iron. You could have that chip down and soldered in seconds.
I just solder the larger stuff with a high-q iron, it's quicker. Way quicker. Especially if you're prototyping and your solder mask is not 100% perfect.
thanks man, I am giving hot-air smd soldering a try, thanks for the explanation..
Hi! Thanks for taping that video, it is nice and clear. About 13 minutes into the video you apply some flux and re-solder the pads, did you do that because the pads were inter-connected after applying the hot air or was there another reason?
Thank you for sharing this. Good techniques!
When you spend 30 mins trying to get the first step done so you tape it down. *HEAVY BREATHING*
What type of solder paste are you using
www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/multicore/583489/82-143-ND/2498941
great video ,however to clean the board just put it in the dishwasher with the dishes and it will come out beautiful and no I am not crazy.
what kind of solder paste did you use?
It looks like flux
Its Voodoo it's an SRA Low Temperature Lead Free Solder Paste. very usefull in a place of classic soldering wire.
Kamal Aziz thanks for answare
Kamal Aziz T3 or T5??
It is so utterly zen watching you do this! Such a clean build!
Also - where'd you get your work board from? Looks nice.
Search for "silicone baking mat". You can get them for $10-$20 USD.
you could talk about things like what is the temperature settings on your hot air and why?
Great job! What kind of solder paste did you use (Gray Color) ?
You can buy an smd stencil for around 10$ and save a lot of time applying the solder paste.
VERY NEAT!
I thought i need to get a mini oven for this!
What temperature is the iron at and what temp is the air gun at? Thanks
iron is probably 350C but I too wonder the air gun temp.
Thank You. Valuable to me and my team!
Thank you for the tuto, but at which temperature you set up the hot air?
Start at 300C and experiment from their. It will depend on how much copper is in the ground plain on the pcb.
This is cool. How come you don't get solder bridges under your surface mount resistors and capacitors? The paste almost seemed to be spanning both pads in some cases.
This is my question also!
Awesome work young man!!
I love soldering ! I would even keep towel over my T.V or monitor just so I can repair it .
Rick D What the fuck
Why does your Rework Station make such a noise. Did you remove the screws holding the pump for transport purposes when you got the station?
This was beautiful to watch
is it just me or..
I wanted to grab the reflow tool out of his hand, slap his hand, and hold in still, with maybe slow moves around the area... could be just being such a close up shot lol.
just like STHAP just stahp
p.s.: great work non the less!
This video would be far more useful if you gave us certain details like: What solder paste you used, what consistency is best [and are there other things to know about selecting the most effective product?] and what temperature and flow rate you set the rework hot air gun to, etc. Also, we don't need to see every excruciating moment of solder paste application, camera adjustment, and heat application!!! Some post production, please! Otherwise, there was some useful substance.
That first tinning? Iron onto the pad, then solder on to the junction between them. Never put solder onto the iron then try to paint with it. The flux is gone, and the solder is useless.
Well, I guess I goofed. The paste does not include a needle nor does it include the plunger. Digikey does not suggest that you add the 20 cents part to your order, so thanks a lot Digikey. They will also not tell you that the item requires an added cold pack which doubles the shipping cost. The paste also expires in three months so I had better get soldering...
When you said that the orientation of the diodes has to be right, how can you know which way the diode is supposed to go? Is there a band or mark of some sort on one side of it?
I am a newbie with this, and I find what you are doing to be quite fascinating. I knew about solder and flux, but I never knew that you could get it combined in a paste like you are doing.
This looks much easier than trying to do it other ways I have seen people do.
Diodes are marked with a bar across the cathode end. Usually, the PCB will be marked with a matching indicator of some sort.
Great video!
One question, what for a soldering iron do you use?
And what for a solder?
Greetings Sebastian
solder paste is pretty expensive, doesn't this pcb come with a solder stencil so you can apply the right amount of solder? it makes a difference to the bottom line over several boards, JLC charges $1.59 for the stencil for 100mmx100mm and it makes life so much easier.
It's a silicone baking mat from Fox Run Brands.
It would be nice to know the temperature of the hot air? I see that as being relevant, maybe add it to the show notes.
What are you using for a hot air gun? Looks like it has a small tip to it. Thanks
The time it took for you to do that 1 QFP chip is much long thanit would've taken to solder that same chip manually with just an iron.
Awesome Cat. Very Kool. Keep It Up. Just a quick question. What temp did you use and what kind of paste did you use.
as soon as you tinned your iron and then put that onto the pad, you lost all credibility to me
Nicely well done.
Thanks for the nice video! What paste are you using and temperature is the hot air set to?