[Lvlug] OT Soldering

[Darryl Gibson]

Mark wrote:
> 
>> Do you do SMT work?
> 
> Everyday.  At work I've just finished building a prototype 2-18GHz synthesizer 
> and on one board alone there are over 300 smt parts.

Cool.

>> I'm well versed in kit building, soldering, etc... But the last kit I
>> built incorporated an SOIC device, man, that would be brutal to do with
>> conventional soldering equipment.
> 
> Not really all that hard.  I can do smt parts down to 0402 sizes (about the 
> size of a grain of rice) without visual aide and I'm getting old enough to 
> need glasses.  A fine soldering tip, very small tweezers and some solder wick 
> will get the job done in under a minute.

Fine business on that, I have the glasses, but not the fine tipped 
soldering iron. Which iron do you use?

>> That was a club project, and one of the club members soldered that chip
>>   on the board for all of us, and then we all finished our boards by
>> ourselves.
> 
> I could've shown you how to do it by yourself. Two or three practice runs and 
> you would be good enough to get it right most of the time.  A little more 
> practice and you'd wonder why you ever thought it was hard.

On that project, the instructor only soldered two pins, and we had to 
solder the remaining six, so there was a little bit of trial under fire 
at work.

> 
>> I've built a lot of electronics stuff from kits, including a color TV,
>> but SMT is a different animal.
> 
> Only in your mind. There are things that make it a lot easier but the one 
> thing that most people have to be taught is to just solder the device to the 
> board and don't worry about solder bridges.  You clean those with solder wick 
> once you are done.  I can solder a 400 pin FPGA in about two minutes that 
> way.

That's a neat trick, if I understand it correctly. Solder all the pins, 
and then remove any excess solder with the braid?

> 
>> Reminds me of my migration to Linux, drivers are modules, batch files
>> are scripts, etc... Painful, but fun.
> 
> You said it! :-)

You can say that again! And it still isn't over with.
> 
>> 73
> Ham radio?  And how did you get the ieee.org email?

Yep, that is my call sign after my sig, Nice Two Do It Yourself. :) And, 
it is not a vanity call sign, I got it luck of the draw.

Um, I joined the IEEE!? :)

Despite the name, you don't have to be an engineer to join. When I 
applied, I listed my experience as an ET, and my experience as a ham, 
and they accepted me as an associate member.

73
-- 
Darryl Gibson N2DIY
RLU X 182668/379552

“Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the 
distinction of a free man from a slave.”   --  Andrew Fletcher, A 
Discourse of Government with relation to Militias (1698)