PCBA for USB-C receptacle.

[ACharnley]

Hi,

I have a small USB-C receptacle by Amphenol. It has 4 main legs which should be soldered (I think), however the length is of such that they don't come close to clearing a 0.8mm PCB thickness. On the attached pictures you can see I've hand soldered them and the solder has sunk. If they were solder pasted using PCBA and the same occurred is that an acceptable way to secure them?

Wondering what the process is!

Cheers, Andrew

 

[ronsimpson]

I soldered USB-2 connectors some thing like this.
The ground pins should have been in a "slot" but that runs the price of the PCB up so I made round holes. They looked much like your pictures.
The four connections are for strength and electrical connection.
I think you are OK.

 

[ACharnley]

Hi Ron, you're right I have the footprint for both but was trying to avoid oval's if possible. The port has two plastic pins on the bottom (you can just see them) which I believe are there to align the port correctly. As the pins are so tight I wonder if this is enough to ensure correct soldering.

Regarding the soldering I guess with ovals the solder paste will do a better job filling it rather than trying to fall through. I still don't like it though, if there's not enough paste it won't fill it and there has to be more than the standard amount used on surface mount components.

 

[ronsimpson]

I did not use solder paste on the 4 pins. I used a soldering iron "the old way". With the round hole there probably is not enough paste to fill.

 

[ACharnley]

I suspected so, plus there's a greater chance the plug won't sit correctly. I'll switch to the footprint with oval holes.

 

[dknguyen]

I suspected so, plus there's a greater chance the plug won't sit correctly. I'll switch to the footprint with oval holes.

Remember to include the files with the slotting/routing information for the oval holes when sending it to the fabricator.