As mentioned elsewhere, setting up a stencil takes time but once done you can apply paste to multiple boards very quickly. This means that it is more suitable for doing a run of boards rather than one-offs. Components smaller than 0805 get increasingly difficult to hand solder and even get tricky to hot-air solder due to the risk of blowing the tiny things off the board! Reflow (oven or hot plate) becomes the only sensible option at this scale. Also, contrary to your comment, you cannot ALWAYS use a soldering iron - some SMT packages do not have all pins exposed, the most common being a ground/heat transfer pad underneath. A very interesting video nevertheless 👍
Just used solder paste and reflow to get two TSSOP-14 packages onto two breakout boards 😅 Applying the solder paste manually was a pain in the ... 😖 Since I'm using such breakout boards quite often I should really get a set of stencils for them (if available, they are from Adafruit). And thanks for the thump up 😃
Thank you for the video, it does prove out what I find as well. if you don't have mistakes (which does happen to all of us) and use a stencil then reflowing is faster , generally. The greater the component count the greater the benefit. As you get down into 0402 range or even 0201 range reflowing really shines IMHO just due to component size. On the soldering side, using the correct tip helps speed things up but changing tips say from a chisel to a hoof (for drag soldering ICs) does add a minute or two (depending on the iron you use).
You're welcome! Mistakes do happen either way (reflow or soldering) and fixing them takes up most of the time. I'm with you that for larger component counts reflow with using a solder paste stencil is the way to go. However, I might switch to soldering my breakout boards for SMD packages when I'm pressed for time (always reflowed them up to now). But only if I'm pressed for time. Reflowed things simply look much nicer.
Setup time for stencil and handling paste is about 10 minutes, but you can then paste a few boards in minutes. Also smaller and qfn parts are more easy, because the paste amount is controlled. But for such a small board and doing only one or two, it’s sometimes hard to justify buying a stencil. However - you know you are straight lying, telling people there’s a 50/50 chance flipping the part on the right side. It’s like usb ports.. three times minimum;)
I'm with you regarding the time needed to setup stencil and solder paste. In the end it's like you're saying: It comes down to time (number of boards and number/size of components) vs money (for the stencil). But, I was not lying about the 50/50 change for flipping a part on its right side! At least for quality parts from reputable distributors this has been statistically proven! I might have omitted the fact that some studies have show parts ordered from AliExpress have only a 30% to 35% of falling down on the right side. A possible explanation for this is that Chinese low cost manufacturers are using ink contaminated with heavy metals, making the marked side heavier and thus causing it to end up at the bottom more often.
I have a hot plate that I use occasionally with great results, but on a small board like that I would probably just hand solder it, before I started working with SMD I swore blind I would never solder them but now I quite enjoy it and my results aren't to bad either, once you get the hang of it 0805 is a doddle, but I love my hot plate too ! so to answer your question...I like both styles...depends on mood!....cheers.
As I said in the video: I'm a bit ambivalent about which technique I prefer too. On a purely subjective level - which I didn't discuss in the video - I found soldering the SMD parts with the iron more satisfying, because subjectively (!) I made faster progress. But then, I do like the results of reflowing much better. Regards, Robert
Thanks for an interesting video. I have always hand soldered and was pondering trying a reflow solution but I do very few pieces. I never sort my components... I go straight from tape to soldering... basically leave a small pile of the component I am working on somewhere on the board. Another thing I was considering was using PCBA service to at least get all the discrete parts fitted.... but only works for >=10 quantities probably. For SMD paste I think I would probably need a suction thing for picking up the parts... tweezers would be too fiddly... there are too many 0603s in my carpet already. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
You're welcome! I initially did reflow only (breakout boards) because I didn't trust myself to solder those MSOP packages :-) I was "forced" into soldering SMD parts during a repair :-)) My OCD is far too strong to not order the parts ;-) No, seriously, I do like the fact that I have some check that I placed the correct parts (especially the capacitors) on the board. I considered buying one of those vacuum tweezers for SMD parts, but my impression is that the cheap ones are even more fiddlier than conventional tweezers. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Your to you too!
A three part series ("... - The Details"), covering everything from the Doppler effect to handling noise / signal level. It will air over the holidays 🙂 Regards, Robert
Hi Robert. Quite an interesting video. Thank you for this comparison that you only can think of doing:-). Please tell us what heating plate you are using and how it is connected. Thank you again for all those instructive videos. Regards, RJM
Hello René-Jean! You're welcome. Well, I had two boards to make and I really wanted to know if I'm able to hand solder one of them 😉 Up to now I always reflowed my SMD stuff but for the odd repair. And of course I shared the experience on UA-cam. You'll find the mailbag video for the hot plate here ua-cam.com/video/Q4XTfRTT3I4/v-deo.html and there was also a little test of it in that video: ua-cam.com/video/Q4XTfRTT3I4/v-deo.html . Best Regards, Robert
Hi Robert. Thank you so much. I had missed this test on the plates. It is interesting to know that it can be used instead of oven for small board. I have a few of these and I will put them to use for such application. Thank you again for sharing. Regards, RJM
@@rene-jeanmercier6517 Hello René-Jean, again, you're welcome. Hot plates work great for PCBs with single sided loads, and obviously won't work at all for PCBs with double sided loads. I personally believe that using a hot plate is more gentle to the SMD parts than using a reflow oven: The heat flows from the hot plate through the PCB to the pads and the solder paste, and from there only a fraction of the heat is going through the pins into the parts. But that's only my opinion. There are a lot of discussions about that (e.g. electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/269832/reflow-oven-vs-even-hot-plate ). Best Regards, Robert
Drown your manual joints in flux. They will take just as much solder as needed, rest flows onto iron. Needs fume exhaust and cleaning, but will also deliver as nice looking joints.
That plastic box is OK for non ESD sensitive parts; but shouldn’t be used for chips, or used in close proximity to them. Conductive foam is good in general, but is insufficient in this context.They make ESD-safe container/organizers that aren’t too expensive. On the subject of ESD (and I just mention this for novice viewers); any workstation area should have an anti static surface and wrist-strap attachment point, all properly grounded of course.
You're absolutely right! I have to admit I'm kinda lazy when it comes to ESD protection when I'm shooting UA-cam videos. I think I only once wear a wrist strap and used a portable ESD mat in my videos. My bad!
As mentioned elsewhere, setting up a stencil takes time but once done you can apply paste to multiple boards very quickly. This means that it is more suitable for doing a run of boards rather than one-offs. Components smaller than 0805 get increasingly difficult to hand solder and even get tricky to hot-air solder due to the risk of blowing the tiny things off the board! Reflow (oven or hot plate) becomes the only sensible option at this scale. Also, contrary to your comment, you cannot ALWAYS use a soldering iron - some SMT packages do not have all pins exposed, the most common being a ground/heat transfer pad underneath. A very interesting video nevertheless 👍
Just used solder paste and reflow to get two TSSOP-14 packages onto two breakout boards 😅 Applying the solder paste manually was a pain in the ... 😖 Since I'm using such breakout boards quite often I should really get a set of stencils for them (if available, they are from Adafruit). And thanks for the thump up 😃
50/50 chance flip, I liked that..
Well, it's a game of chance, but for me it works definitely faster that trying to turn them upside down with the pincers in a coordinated way 😉
Thank you for the video, it does prove out what I find as well. if you don't have mistakes (which does happen to all of us) and use a stencil then reflowing is faster , generally. The greater the component count the greater the benefit. As you get down into 0402 range or even 0201 range reflowing really shines IMHO just due to component size. On the soldering side, using the correct tip helps speed things up but changing tips say from a chisel to a hoof (for drag soldering ICs) does add a minute or two (depending on the iron you use).
You're welcome! Mistakes do happen either way (reflow or soldering) and fixing them takes up most of the time. I'm with you that for larger component counts reflow with using a solder paste stencil is the way to go. However, I might switch to soldering my breakout boards for SMD packages when I'm pressed for time (always reflowed them up to now). But only if I'm pressed for time. Reflowed things simply look much nicer.
Setup time for stencil and handling paste is about 10 minutes, but you can then paste a few boards in minutes. Also smaller and qfn parts are more easy, because the paste amount is controlled. But for such a small board and doing only one or two, it’s sometimes hard to justify buying a stencil. However - you know you are straight lying, telling people there’s a 50/50 chance flipping the part on the right side. It’s like usb ports.. three times minimum;)
I'm with you regarding the time needed to setup stencil and solder paste. In the end it's like you're saying: It comes down to time (number of boards and number/size of components) vs money (for the stencil). But, I was not lying about the 50/50 change for flipping a part on its right side! At least for quality parts from reputable distributors this has been statistically proven! I might have omitted the fact that some studies have show parts ordered from AliExpress have only a 30% to 35% of falling down on the right side. A possible explanation for this is that Chinese low cost manufacturers are using ink contaminated with heavy metals, making the marked side heavier and thus causing it to end up at the bottom more often.
I have a hot plate that I use occasionally with great results, but on a small board like that I would probably just hand solder it, before I started working with SMD I swore blind I would never solder them but now I quite enjoy it and my results aren't to bad either, once you get the hang of it 0805 is a doddle, but I love my hot plate too ! so to answer your question...I like both styles...depends on mood!....cheers.
As I said in the video: I'm a bit ambivalent about which technique I prefer too. On a purely subjective level - which I didn't discuss in the video - I found soldering the SMD parts with the iron more satisfying, because subjectively (!) I made faster progress. But then, I do like the results of reflowing much better. Regards, Robert
Thanks for an interesting video. I have always hand soldered and was pondering trying a reflow solution but I do very few pieces. I never sort my components... I go straight from tape to soldering... basically leave a small pile of the component I am working on somewhere on the board. Another thing I was considering was using PCBA service to at least get all the discrete parts fitted.... but only works for >=10 quantities probably. For SMD paste I think I would probably need a suction thing for picking up the parts... tweezers would be too fiddly... there are too many 0603s in my carpet already. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
You're welcome! I initially did reflow only (breakout boards) because I didn't trust myself to solder those MSOP packages :-) I was "forced" into soldering SMD parts during a repair :-)) My OCD is far too strong to not order the parts ;-) No, seriously, I do like the fact that I have some check that I placed the correct parts (especially the capacitors) on the board. I considered buying one of those vacuum tweezers for SMD parts, but my impression is that the cheap ones are even more fiddlier than conventional tweezers. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Your to you too!
Looking forward to see what you will do with the Doppler modules. Regards, RJM
A three part series ("... - The Details"), covering everything from the Doppler effect to handling noise / signal level. It will air over the holidays 🙂 Regards, Robert
Hi Robert. Quite an interesting video. Thank you for this comparison that you only can think of doing:-). Please tell us what heating plate you are using and how it is connected. Thank you again for all those instructive videos. Regards, RJM
Hello René-Jean! You're welcome. Well, I had two boards to make and I really wanted to know if I'm able to hand solder one of them 😉 Up to now I always reflowed my SMD stuff but for the odd repair. And of course I shared the experience on UA-cam. You'll find the mailbag video for the hot plate here ua-cam.com/video/Q4XTfRTT3I4/v-deo.html and there was also a little test of it in that video: ua-cam.com/video/Q4XTfRTT3I4/v-deo.html . Best Regards, Robert
Hi Robert. Thank you so much. I had missed this test on the plates. It is interesting to know that it can be used instead of oven for small board. I have a few of these and I will put them to use for such application. Thank you again for sharing. Regards, RJM
@@rene-jeanmercier6517 Hello René-Jean, again, you're welcome. Hot plates work great for PCBs with single sided loads, and obviously won't work at all for PCBs with double sided loads. I personally believe that using a hot plate is more gentle to the SMD parts than using a reflow oven: The heat flows from the hot plate through the PCB to the pads and the solder paste, and from there only a fraction of the heat is going through the pins into the parts. But that's only my opinion. There are a lot of discussions about that (e.g. electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/269832/reflow-oven-vs-even-hot-plate ). Best Regards, Robert
Drown your manual joints in flux. They will take just as much solder as needed, rest flows onto iron. Needs fume exhaust and cleaning, but will also deliver as nice looking joints.
Thanks for the tip! I'll try that next time.
That plastic box is OK for non ESD sensitive parts; but shouldn’t be used for chips, or used in close proximity to them. Conductive foam is good in general, but is insufficient in this context.They make ESD-safe container/organizers that aren’t too expensive.
On the subject of ESD (and I just mention this for novice viewers); any workstation area should have an anti static surface and wrist-strap attachment point, all properly grounded of course.
You're absolutely right!
I have to admit I'm kinda lazy when it comes to ESD protection when I'm shooting UA-cam videos. I think I only once wear a wrist strap and used a portable ESD mat in my videos. My bad!
👍
😁