Re: Hedghog and soldering
I work with 0603 size SMD stuff all day every day at work! Best thing to use is a stereo microscope to look at it with, although I can do it without one. For soldering multi-legged chips, as has been said, line it up, solder one corner pin down, check alignment again, solder the other corner, then get some flux on it and run a blob of solder down one row of pins, do it at a nice steady speed, don’t over-work it as the flux will burn off and you will start bridging legs, of you do bridge a few, it is easy to have another go, and once you are happy with it any remaining bridges can be removed with a bit more flux and a dab of the iron. For SMD caps and resistors you just put a tiny bit of solder on a pad, then stick the component in it, then solder the other end. We have some super-expensive JBC solder tweezers at work, which makes 2 terminal devices dead easy to replace!
I prefer paste flux to the liquid, you can use less of it so it’s easier to clean up afterwards. Once you get the hang of these SMD things, they are quite easy, especially if you have a good iron, plenty of light and a bit of magnification. Oh, keep some solder braid handy too!
Another way I’ve seen putting together of new PCBs done is with solder paste and a hot-plate, especially good if you have a large ground-plane which normally sucks all the heat away from your iron tip.
Regards
Lloyd
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