[Coco] Surface Mount Soldering

[jdaggett at gate.net]

The key to using a soldering iron for SMT work is having enough flux on the board and not to 
much solder. 

There are other alternatives to the soldering iron approach. 

One is a hot plate. A 4in square hotplate by Thermalake is very good alternative.

Second is the few toaster oven reflow boards out there. The stand alone controllers range in 
the $60 to $100 and then add what ever your local Walmart or Taget has in a 1500 watt 
toaster oven. 

The lone issue with the toaster oven is that it should have burners on the top and bottom and 
a circulating fan inside to reduce hot zones. ALso the toaster oven method needs to work at 
max temperature to melt the newer lead free solders. Also the different preheat times will 
need adjusting.

I still like the hotplate for small boards. especially with BGA packages. 

james

On 6 Jul 2010 at 0:30, Aaron Wolfe wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 5, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Little John (GIMEchip.com)
> <sales at gimechip.com> wrote:
> > This guy has some amazing videos on SMT soldering - I never get bored just watching these. Some have sound, some are silent, but they are beatiful nonetheless :-)
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQXhny3R7lk
> > This is the vertical drag technique that my dad uses too.
> > -John
> > P.S. check out all of this guys videos if you have time. They are amazing.
> > -Lil' J
> >
> 
> That is interesting to watch.  I recently got a ham license and have
> been soldering together some very simple circuits to reduce
> interference when connecting a radio to an PC to decode digital
> modes.. anyway, boy am I bad at soldering!  That guy is like the
> maestro of solder.
> 
> There are a lot of good "how to" videos on youtube for all kinds of
> things, if you're in to do-it-yourself, its a great resource.
> 
> 
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