Re: gEDA-user: Soldering fine pitch chips

[Dan McMahill <dan-atMUNGEDmcmahill_dot_net>]

Randall Nortman wrote:

> Overall, reflow soldering is much faster.  You spend a long time
> placing each component, but then the soldering itself happens for the
> whole board at once, in just a few minutes.  The process is remarkably
> forgiving of placement errors with these fine-pitch chips -- the
> surface tension of the solder will pull the chip into alignment, so
> long as it is approximately correct.  0603 components actually give me
> much more problems on those boards, since they have little motivation
> to stay put once I've placed them, and are more likely to pull out of
> alignment during soldering if one end melts before the other.  I'm not
> brave enough to have tried hand placing 0402 chips yet.

for 0402's I'm still just hand soldering them...  I'm curious, when 
you've been doing the toaster oven reflow, doesn't the solder paste help 
keep your 0603's in place?

BTW, if anyone has an air compressor around, you can get these nifty 
solder paste applicators which is basically a syringe with a foot pedal 
that will deliver a small amount of solder paste when you press the 
pedal.  Makes for quick application of the paste if you're doing it by 
hand instead of with a stencil.

-Dan