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New ICs are a nightmare

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audioguru ... perhaps mounting that little begger upside down and connecting with thin wires ..
It is a Power Amplifier and its bottom has its thermal pad that must be soldered to a heatsink somehow. Thermal glue?
 
There are tiny "side pads" where the bottom solder pads fold around the edge and up the sides for a whopping 0.2mm.
That happens with every leadless package I can think of that has contacts on the side (not BGA). Allows excess solder somewhere to go so there is more tolerance for bad paste placement.
 
If you don't actually make a correct PCB for it and follow the layout shown in the PDF File, you might get some Unwanted Oscillations.
 
bottom has its thermal pad that must be soldered to a heatsink somehow. Thermal glue?
Guess you would have to provide some pressure on the pad for that to work. If its not too big a dissipation required then perhaps a small DIY copper heat sink soldered to the pad... just a thought.
 
On my copter I had 4 accelerometers, due to size and weight constraints I didnt want to use a break out board so I hand soldered the bare chips to a board I made, complete nightmare! It took 6 attempts to get the traces right then it took another 3 hours to solder them with a microscope, I am constantly watching ebay for a IR solder station going cheap (not a cheap station), one day one will surface :D. I think these are becoming more and more important for hobby work, I also have a auto focus machine for vision impaired people as well as a dissecting scope, although now I have glasses things are a little better.

I agree some modern chips are beyond a joke for the hobbyist.
 
I use a couple of 3 mm square ICs with 0.5 mm spacing. I've only tried using them on a professionally made circuit board. One has a thermal pad on the bottom. I solder them in a reflow oven, and rework with a hot air gun.

Neither IC is available in larger sizes.

On proper circuit board, there are a few things working in my favour. The surface tension of the molten solder is usually enough to clear any bridges. I screen print the paste or apply with a syringe, and in both cases I just apply the solder all the way along each side, not on individual pads. Also the solder paste will usually pull the component into place. I don't know what they weigh, but around 30 mg is my estimate, so surface tension has a big effect. Lastly, the ICs are so small that the whole IC heats up fairly quickly. The 3 mm square ICs are a lot easier to get to temperature than the TSSOP20 that has a thermal pad underneath.
 
Yip, ICs are tending to invisible. As a hobbyist I have found that breakout boards and "precision" soldering are now part of life (I'm convinced I could be a surgeon)

Here's two of my recent examples:

ESP-13 Breakout.jpg
HTSSOP56_Breakout.jpg


https://www.youtube.com/embed/KPB1KTpIPQE
 
Yip, ICs are tending to invisible. As a hobbyist I have found that breakout boards and "precision" soldering are now part of life (I'm convinced I could be a surgeon)
What kind of wire did you use for the wi-fi device? I always have problems when I try this method!
 
Individual strands from finely stranded wire.
 
Maybe this surface mount technology will become more attractive for experimenting when SMD to THT adapters will arrive on the market (not only for ICs, but also for smd capacitors and other smd components). I mean a socket where you can directly place the component without needing to solder and desolder it, just like in this case:
m3aedIYHWt15K3cZzrfFHsQ.jpg
so that experimenting on breadboard with smd will become less time-consuming.
 
I personally find those ics easy to handle , specially using a nice bga station instead of a heat gun.
 
I am a beginner in electronics and I don't use expensive equipment. In fact, I am used to build circuits with components from my junkbox or recover them from broken PCBs. As for that BGA station, it is for the first time I see one (sincerely it looks like a spaceship in the world of tools) From what I have seen one on Alibaba and it uses hot air and infrared (or am I wrong?). I would really like to have advanced tools to work with, however I am still learning to use traditional equipment, until I master it.
 
Maybe this surface mount technology will become more attractive for experimenting when SMD to THT adapters will arrive on the market (not only for ICs, but also for smd capacitors and other smd components). I mean a socket where you can directly place the component without needing to solder and desolder it, just like in this case:
m3aedIYHWt15K3cZzrfFHsQ.jpg
so that experimenting on breadboard with smd will become less time-consuming.
You can get through-hole sockets similar to those. I used a through hole socket for a 44 pin PLCC high voltage driver IC on my Nixie frequency counter board:


NixDispTop.jpg
 
Hello,

You know what they say: The only thing that doesnt change about life is that life always changes.

I've only recently started to use SMD again, but only once in a while. I did not have to use bga yet though.
One thing i must say is that if you are going to do SMD you need a PC board with the right pattern to start with. Without that, it just doesnt work. If you can make your own board then that's cool too, but it has to have an accurate pattern.
Solder paste does help. When it melts it 'finds' the pins due to adhesion or cohesion and surface tension. It's amazing to watch. When the paste is applied it looks like it might solder all the pins on one side together forming one big short circuit, but it doesnt do that, it separates as it distributes itself between all the pins when it heats up.
I've also used deadbug style for 0.05 inch pitch IC's with #32 AWG wire, but it looks like crap when it's done.

I also miss the days of the 741 although i would not use that particular chip anymore either. My first amplifier was with the ua701 op amp. The one i had had a metal top but was still a dual inline DIP package. Used it with two transistors for a power amplifier.

Life always changes. Unfortunately that is in almost all areas of life too. I guess we have to look at the bright side, where we can build much smaller circuits if we HAVE to.
 
Hello,

You know what they say: The only thing that doesnt change about life is that life always changes.

I've only recently started to use SMD again, but only once in a while. I did not have to use bga yet though.
One thing i must say is that if you are going to do SMD you need a PC board with the right pattern to start with. Without that, it just doesnt work. If you can make your own board then that's cool too, but it has to have an accurate pattern.
Solder paste does help. When it melts it 'finds' the pins due to adhesion or cohesion and surface tension. It's amazing to watch. When the paste is applied it looks like it might solder all the pins on one side together forming one big short circuit, but it doesnt do that, it separates as it distributes itself between all the pins when it heats up.
I've also used deadbug style for 0.05 inch pitch IC's with #32 AWG wire, but it looks like crap when it's done.

I also miss the days of the 741 although i would not use that particular chip anymore either. My first amplifier was with the ua701 op amp. The one i had had a metal top but was still a dual inline DIP package. Used it with two transistors for a power amplifier.

Life always changes. Unfortunately that is in almost all areas of life too. I guess we have to look at the bright side, where we can build much smaller circuits if we HAVE to.
I agree with you MrAl. Surface mount technology has it's advantages too. What I meant is that experimenting with it is not so easy, especially when you need to replace parts (yikes). It has been a period when I wanted to work with smd too (training myself at soldering) and I have seen that soldering a smd component is quite easy, even with a hot soldering iron. I think I have learned a secret: if you set a high temperature and you are quick enough when soldering, the part heats LESS than in the situation of a lower temperature and a longer time. As for making PCBs, I need a lot more practice...:rolleyes:
 
Andrei_D12
You hit the nail on the head - hot and quick is a good way to solder. The joint heats up quickly, but you complete it before a significant amount of heat has had time to transfer into the component. It's also a risky way to solder - it is easy to over-heat the part and burn the board!
"Drag soldering" is a good technique to learn. First time I tried it, it worked perfectly. Never been able to get it right since.
 
Liberal amounts of liquid flux should give you the answer.

You also need the right soldering iron tip. Sometimes you can get chisel tips to work, but for drag soldering your best bet is a bowl tip.
 
Universial-HAKKO-Soldering-Tip-T18-C2-Bevel-Shape-size-2mm-bulk-price.jpg

I have seen that the bevel tip does an excelent job when soldering. I tried making a tip like this from a piece of thick copper wire. It behave well. Anyway, a tip with a flat surface performs better than a cone tip.
 
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