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I have not tried to solder SMDs yet, do you have any hints?philba said:by the way, soldering SMDs is really pretty easy. start with SOICs and 1206s. move on to ssops and such. you will be suprised how easy it it.
GoKid said:This issue arose for me in trying to find a DIP clock distribution controller (CDC) which seems to be obsolete (digikey, Mouser, etc). If anyone knows where I can get one please post. I have a single 800KHz crystal source that I want to distribute to four other ICs.
dknguyen said:You need a good pair of tweezers to hold the IC in place for soldering the first two pins individually and this is when any overheating is likely to occur. WHen you start dragging it's pretty hard to overheat the IC:
1. Line the IC up properly.
2. Add flux to a corner pin
3. manually solder one corner pin the way you would normally
4. Make sure it's lined up properly
5. add flux to the opposite corner pin
6. manually solder that pin in
7. now place a row of flux down each side of pins
8. dab a bead of solder on the tip of your iron and drag it down one side
9. repeat step 8 for each side. make sure to have lots of flux
If your iron is lucky enough to have a "spoon" tip available it can make it easier. Its an iron tip where the tip is a hollowed out a bit and makes it so you can hold more solder more easily for dragging.
This method does not work with BGAs where some of the connection are under the chip. Only works when the connections are on the side.
This drag method is the easiest, most effective and cheapest way since you don't need a reflow oven or hot air or anything. It's also more reliable and faster than soldering each pin one by one...that sucks.
Here is a guide:
**broken link removed**
Here is a video (but this one is using an iron tip with the hollow in the middle to make it easier):
**broken link removed**
*Continuous flow in this guide refers to the drag solder method I outlined above. Point-to-point is each and every pin manual and hot-air is hot-air.
QUESTION TO OTHERS:
Why does this drag method work exactly? It doesn't seem to require heating up the pins and the pad like in through-hole soldering which was a critical part of through-hole soldering success.. I'm also curious if the solder is able to get underneath the pin and form a bond between the pad and pin. It just seems to coat the top of the pin.