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Neat! Do you get paste stencils made as part of the PCBA manufacturing process? How many components a year were you hand soldering or reflowing before you decid
by malexw 6y ago
Neat! Do you get paste stencils made as part of the PCBA manufacturing process? How many components a year were you hand soldering or reflowing before you decided to try and automate the process a bit more?
- rta5 6y agoI've done stencils from OSH stencils before, but its not something I usually do. Typically I solder only a few hundred SMD components per year. The oven is less for reducing soldering time and more for increasing part selection; Too many parts come in leadless packages like QFNs that are painful to solder well by hand.
- malexw 6y agoGot it. I have a project that I want to do based on a TI CC-1125 to connect 303 MHz devices in my home to a smart home system, but of course all the interesting parts these days come in QFNs. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to go through the trouble of reflowing it with hot air or if it was just worth the $100 for the booster pack development board. It's unfortunate that the economics of low-volume prototype manufacturing don't work out for the home designer.