Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.
I'm learning to solder a circuit board and am having trouble holding it still. I also had a hard time keeping an IC socket in place while I tried to solder it. Any techniques would be appreciated. Do you guys use a spring clamp that is fastened to a heavy base?
There were a few threads on this in the past where people showed some pretty creative home brew solutions. I also like some of the Panavise solutions. Try a thread search with some assorted terms.
I also use tape (whatever is handy -- usually masking; sometimes vinyl) and wooden cloths pin clamps. The working end of the cloths pin can be narrowed to get into narrow places. I have one with grooves to hold up to three or four wires for in soldering to pinheaders.
For surface mount devices, I use either a little flux or a very tiny dot of fast cyanoacrylic adhesive (CA, Superglue) to stick them to the board. Heat of soldering will cause the CA to evaporate, if you ever need to remove the part. That is for homemade boards with neither solder mask nor solder paste.
I usually bend the pins slightly to hold components to the board, but you may not always want to do that with ICs. If you're not using a socket, the pins will be too short, and bending them could put stress on them and possibly cause them to break. In that case, there is an adhesive putty you can buy that you can use to "stick" your IC to your board while soldering. If you are using IC sockets, and they are new, with long leads, that is really ideal. Bending the corner leads slightly will be the easiest way to temporarily hold it to the board.
As for holding the board down, you have several options. Personally, I (depending on the size of the board) use a "helping hand" tool, which is basically a heavy base with two "arms" branching off on either side. They are jointed in a few places, and on the end there's an alligator clamp. I have found this to be more than sufficient for small, lightweight boards. However, if your board is larger, I usually take a couple of pieces of corrugated cardboard and put them in my table vise, with the board between them. The cardboard protects the edges of my board from being damaged. If one layer of cardboard on each side doesn't seem like enough, go ahead and put in a second one. The point is to protect the board while holding it firmly within the vise.
i've used several different panavise tools. my favorite one has a rail with two movable arms that can be adjusted for PCB sizes up to about 12". another one i use is a connector vise with a movable spring. the purpose of the spring is to hold wires being soldered into a connector. i've been looking for a cut-and-clinch tool for a few years now. i'm sure somebody still makes them, but they're difficult to find.
a "quick and dirty" pcb holding tool can be made with a 2x4 piece of wood and some rubber bands..
thanks, i'll try to get my shop manager to order some today
seems i was using the wrong search terms, as i was using "flush-cutter" and "shear-cutter".
i once worked for a manufacturer that used cut and clinch tools, and they saved a lot of time. another tool that seems to be unobtanium is the wire wrap tools for 18ga stranded wire, which many far east manufacturers used, but i could never find them in the US....
another way to hold small boards still is a couple of pairs of large needlenose pliers with rubber bands around the handles.
Thanks for some really good links. That Panavise looks good and I'm sure it's worth every cent, but I decided to go ghetto on this. I was a little disappointed I had to spend $2.50 on a cheap showerhead. Everthing else was laying around.
I trimmed the showerhead down to the ball joint so I could grab the clamp. Took a bench grinder to the spring clamp handle then glued it in the threaded part that I cut from the spray adjuster of the shower head. Screwed the threaded part with clamp attached back into the shower head. Got a short 1/2" pipe nipple and stuck it to a 2x4. Screwed the shower head to the nipple. Screwed the 2x4 to a piece of scrap plywood. The whole thing took about 15 minutes.
The circuit I just built has 8 pots and some jacks and a bunch of dangleing wire. The ball joint is not quite stiff enough to completely suspend it. It sags until a pot or something just touches the plywood. I would have used a smaller, shorter clamp to lose leverage. But I think this will work real well if the pots and heavy stuff go on last. Without a doubt, it would have made this circuit a lot easier to build.
Thanks for some really good links. That Panavise looks good and I'm sure it's worth every cent, but I decided to go ghetto on this. I was a little disappointed I had to spend $2.50 on a cheap showerhead. Everthing else was laying around.
I trimmed the showerhead down to the ball joint so I could grab the clamp. Took a bench grinder to the spring clamp handle then glued it in the threaded part that I cut from the spray adjuster of the shower head. Screwed the threaded part with clamp attached back into the shower head. Got a short 1/2" pipe nipple and stuck it to a 2x4. Screwed the shower head to the nipple. Screwed the 2x4 to a piece of scrap plywood. The whole thing took about 15 minutes.
The circuit I just built has 8 pots and some jacks and a bunch of dangleing wire. The ball joint is not quite stiff enough to completely suspend it. It sags until a pot or something just touches the plywood. I would have used a smaller, shorter clamp to lose leverage. But I think this will work real well if the pots and heavy stuff go on last. Without a doubt, it would have made this circuit a lot easier to build.
I don't know how you could get a hose clamp around this ball joint without losing the ability to screw the threaded part that is glued to the clamp into place.
I just used this thing to install some caps on my circuit. I am very happy with it. The only drawback is the clamp I used does not do a real good job of holding a narrow edge, like at the end of the job when you can't clamp an inch into the board. That's because the clamp has tips that pivot. I'm going to mess with it later and see if I can get it to grip 1/4" firmly. For sure the clamp has a strong enough spring. I'm thinking of losing the pivoting tips and re-shaping the business end of the clamp with my grinder. Shouldn't take any more time than writing this post.
Bending the lead doesn't always keep it snug to the board. I'll usually bend the leads over slightly to hold it in position so it doesn't fall out when i flip the board over. Then I'll solder one of the pins in. Then I'll reheat the joint while pushing the component up snug to the board.
There're good ideas here, I use them all: have an edge clamping fixture (I have the PanaVise version, but bought the 24" bar option... all circa~1977).
Start with the lowest profile parts, I use various pieces of rubber sheeting to hold the parts to board. Tag solder, check for anything not down to board, correct, then solder all in.
Repeat in increasing height order.
On multiple board builds, I frequently use board A to hold board Bs' parts etc.
I wonder how to express this... I'm SO jealous of this (and other) forums to disseminate quality info, when I struggled SO much to acquire it... usually on my own. <<<)))
As rubber sheeting: the stuff that lines toolboxes & kitchen drawers is a great 1st level that I use. Foam rubber weatherstripping is a 2nd level I've used as well.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
new here
