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This video shows how easy it is: http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Soldering/101 http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Solde

This video shows how easy it is: http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Soldering/101 http://store.curiousinventor.com/guides/Surface_Mount_Solder... Through-hole: Fit part through holes, grab iron, tack solder, put iron back, flip board, grab cutter, cut leads, put cutters back, solder joints, flip board back. SMD: Grab tweezers, pick up part, place, tack solder, adjust fit, solder. Through-hole sucks. SMD is a bitch with the wrong methods and tools, but very pleasant with decent tweezers, liquid flux, good desoldering braid, Chip-Quik super-low-melting-point desoldering solder, and a reasonable tip on the iron. No expensive stuff needed. But the right methods are, which are easily learned. SMD has better electrical properties - less noise pickup and lower inductance, which is necessary for high frequency work. Certain chip packages are tricky to solder in SMD, like BGAs I believe. Possible though. And probably easy with the right tools and technique - capillary action tends to align everything anyway if you can get heat into the solder. Very small SMDis not pleasant ... 0805 is a breeze, 0603 is fine, 0402 can be a bit tense sometimes. Smaller than that is unpleasant ... You can do SMD soldering!

AnthonBerg 14y ago
To give some context, All of this stuff is actually easy to build: 41Hz Amp32, energy-efficient 2x25W hifi amp, sounds amazing, 17 grams, fits in a matchbox with room to spare: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 41Hz Amp4, similar but higher power and sounds ridicullusly good - looks like a hard SMD build maybe, but absolutely isn't: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 41Hz PS4, tiny switching voltage regulator - modern 780x/LM317 replace ent that is 90% power efficient and can handle a ~90V in/out differential: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= GrubDAC, pretty small and nice usb powered audio out: http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php None of them are really feasible through-hole; Similar is possible but noticeably bigger and less performant. (Not affiliated with any vendors listed above, no commercial interest, just like the stuff.)
- AnthonBerg 14y ago
  The editing of the jumble up above was precluded by the HN anti-procrastination feature kicking in. Here it is - along with my apologies - in a more presentable form: — 41Hz Amp32, energy-efficient 2x25W hifi amp, sounds amazing, 17 grams, fits in a matchbox with room to spare: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 41Hz Amp4, similar but higher power and sounds ridiculously good - looks like a hard SMD build maybe, but absolutely isn't: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 41Hz PS4, tiny switching voltage regulator - modern 780x/LM317 replacement that is ~90% power efficient and can handle a ~90V in/out tension differential: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= GrubDAC, pretty small and nice usb powered audio output: http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php
HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago
I can't tell if you are forcing your point or not, but I have to correct. You're doing through hole wrong: that way will take forever to do a board. Stuff the board with the smallest height components. Place a compliant material on top of the board (e.g., firm foam rubber). Flip board over and solder all components. Put iron down. Cut leads. Flip board over and repeat for next highest components. This minimizes the number of tool swaps and handling and is very fast. That said: I much prefer SMT soldering and I don't even use an iron anymore, even for just one board: manually dispense paste on all the pads. Place all components at once. Put in toaster oven. Bake (I manually adjust the profile while watching the clock). Remove perfectly soldered boards. But yeah, I won't do anything smaller than 0805 or 0.5mm pitch QFP just yet :-)
- AnthonBerg 14y ago
  Hahha, forcing a point yes, but also just being a little thick and not 'getting' the foam-pad method. THANK YOU. In real life, doing many through-hole components at once, I have tack soldered them top-side - when possible, e.g. resistors, not possible for radial caps.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    In production environments you buy special frames for that method. You can also get "cropping plates" and "cropping machines". A cropping plate is a sheet of steel with holes drilled for all through-hole component leads. You place a few PCBs on it, then stuff all components. You then place the plate on the cropping machine, which has "drop down pins" to hold the components in place and sliding blades under the plate which scrape / cut the leads off. You then take the PCBs off the plate and put them through a wave solder machine. One potential problem with tacking topside (and this is more theoretical than real) - sometimes the through hole plating is cracked. On a multilayer PCB this may mean that you don't have proper connection between all layers. If you only solder from the bottom of the board you can see if the solder has correctly flowed. Some high-spec jobs will forbid soldering on the topside. (Aerospace, etc.)
gnosis 14y ago
"Through-hole: Fit part through holes, grab iron, tack solder, put iron back, flip board, grab cutter, cut leads, put cutters back, solder joints, flip board back. SMD: Grab tweezers, pick up part, place, tack solder, adjust fit, solder." You didn't even mention flux! Flux is very important in all hand-soldering. Without it, you are going to have a very hard time.
- AnthonBerg 14y ago
  Yeah, you're right. A simple two-joint part like that can be done without additional flux, just using what's in the solder - but the example would have been less poetic, more accurate, and most importantly more educational if it had had a fluxing step.

AnthonBerg 14y ago

To give some context, All of this stuff is actually easy to build: 41Hz Amp32, energy-efficient 2x25W hifi amp, sounds amazing, 17 grams, fits in a matchbox with room to spare: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 41Hz Amp4, similar but higher power and sounds ridicullusly good - looks like a hard SMD build maybe, but absolutely isn't: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 41Hz PS4, tiny switching voltage regulator - modern 780x/LM317 replace ent that is 90% power efficient and can handle a ~90V in/out differential: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= GrubDAC, pretty small and nice usb powered audio out: http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php None of them are really feasible through-hole; Similar is possible but noticeably bigger and less performant. (Not affiliated with any vendors listed above, no commercial interest, just like the stuff.)

AnthonBerg 14y ago
The editing of the jumble up above was precluded by the HN anti-procrastination feature kicking in. Here it is - along with my apologies - in a more presentable form: — 41Hz Amp32, energy-efficient 2x25W hifi amp, sounds amazing, 17 grams, fits in a matchbox with room to spare: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=38 41Hz Amp4, similar but higher power and sounds ridiculously good - looks like a hard SMD build maybe, but absolutely isn't: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=6 41Hz PS4, tiny switching voltage regulator - modern 780x/LM317 replacement that is ~90% power efficient and can handle a ~90V in/out tension differential: http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= http://shop.41hz.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=317&catid= GrubDAC, pretty small and nice usb powered audio output: http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php http://diyforums.org/GrubDAC/GrubDACoverview.php

HeyLaughingBoy 14y ago

I can't tell if you are forcing your point or not, but I have to correct. You're doing through hole wrong: that way will take forever to do a board. Stuff the board with the smallest height components. Place a compliant material on top of the board (e.g., firm foam rubber). Flip board over and solder all components. Put iron down. Cut leads. Flip board over and repeat for next highest components. This minimizes the number of tool swaps and handling and is very fast. That said: I much prefer SMT soldering and I don't even use an iron anymore, even for just one board: manually dispense paste on all the pads. Place all components at once. Put in toaster oven. Bake (I manually adjust the profile while watching the clock). Remove perfectly soldered boards. But yeah, I won't do anything smaller than 0805 or 0.5mm pitch QFP just yet :-)

AnthonBerg 14y ago
Hahha, forcing a point yes, but also just being a little thick and not 'getting' the foam-pad method. THANK YOU. In real life, doing many through-hole components at once, I have tack soldered them top-side - when possible, e.g. resistors, not possible for radial caps.
- DanBC 14y ago
  In production environments you buy special frames for that method. You can also get "cropping plates" and "cropping machines". A cropping plate is a sheet of steel with holes drilled for all through-hole component leads. You place a few PCBs on it, then stuff all components. You then place the plate on the cropping machine, which has "drop down pins" to hold the components in place and sliding blades under the plate which scrape / cut the leads off. You then take the PCBs off the plate and put them through a wave solder machine. One potential problem with tacking topside (and this is more theoretical than real) - sometimes the through hole plating is cracked. On a multilayer PCB this may mean that you don't have proper connection between all layers. If you only solder from the bottom of the board you can see if the solder has correctly flowed. Some high-spec jobs will forbid soldering on the topside. (Aerospace, etc.)

gnosis 14y ago

"Through-hole: Fit part through holes, grab iron, tack solder, put iron back, flip board, grab cutter, cut leads, put cutters back, solder joints, flip board back. SMD: Grab tweezers, pick up part, place, tack solder, adjust fit, solder." You didn't even mention flux! Flux is very important in all hand-soldering. Without it, you are going to have a very hard time.

AnthonBerg 14y ago
Yeah, you're right. A simple two-joint part like that can be done without additional flux, just using what's in the solder - but the example would have been less poetic, more accurate, and most importantly more educational if it had had a fluxing step.