Surface Mount Soldering 101

feedback and corrections are appreciated.

Great video!

The best video I’ve seen so far. I prefer to tack the chip, resistor,
capacitor ect. using only the tin on the pad.(Works only on pre-tinned boards) I hope you’ll fill up with more content soon . Good luck!

Great Explanation of this smallest components, i like it.

Fantastic work! More good communicators like yourself are needed in electronics.

Excellent narration, excellent framing, excellent lighting … excellent vid. Thanx!

Best SMT vid I’ve ever seen!

Awesome video :) Great job !

Just my 2ct, but I soon will have to learn soldering SMD (thx for this GREAT tutorial), and rather than buying protoboard (or in addition to buying them), I will scavenger a fem old routers and mother board, and play desoldering / resoldering some parts on them.

tReg.

Thank you!

Very good vid. Only recommendation to soldering/desoldering chips is to not solder consecutive leads. This can lead to overheating and damaging the chip. Whenever possible stagger pins and sides of the chip to allow heat to dissipate rather than continue to build.

Thanks to all.

Re: soldering consecutive pins:

Good point, this is a precaution that wasn’t emphasized in the video. I will say, however, that I’ve been told drag soldering is the most popular technique used in industry, and it definitely requires soldering adjacent pins. Also, chips are oftentimes soldered by dunking the entire package in a vat of molten solder (wave soldering). The vats of solder are lower in temperature than hand irons, though. How careful you need to be certainly depends on the chip and iron temp, but staggering when possible is great advice.

Such use full web content is appreciated and deserves a thank you.
Thank you

excellent work this has to be the best yet nice one!

A very great job : sharp images, clear voice and very instructive.
Thanx for sharing this

Excellent ! Can I download this video?

This sucks, not everyone has flash. :(

This is very interesting. I have done a lot of SMT soldering but this shows me a better way. Unfortunately, it is hard to watch as my download speed is slower than the playback :( A way to save it would be really good so I can watch better. Replay reloads it again, not playing it from a buffer.

quality’s not as good, but you might have better luck watching it on youtube

Excellent !

its called SOLDEr not “SODDER” as the lazy american narrator keeps saying

solder \’sä-dər\ == American pronunciation != British anachronism
ref. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/solder
see also -> aluminum

What temperature is the soldring iron being used in this video, anyone know?

a variety of temperatures were used, from 600-670 degrees F, although most of the video was shot at around 640. With lead-free you’ll probably want an iron somewhere around 700-750 degrees F.

Awesome video and excellent quality. Thank you for taking the time to make it detailed and understandable. Gives me a little more confidence soldering/desoldering chips as a beginner.

I couldn’t keep watching..the poor pronunciation of SOLder annoyed me too much!

Our company is based in the US, so we use the American pronunciation: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/solder

Awesome video!!! Thanks

Thanks for the very useful video! Great technique and well explained. No thanks to the provincial pronunciation fascists who can’t handle variation in language.

Thank you very much for this very useful and practical information!

Great video, I’m really excited to try some of those techniques.

Excellent video. What formulation of solder would you recommend?

The main choices to make when choosing solder are the metal content (formulation?), flux and manufacturer. If you don’t mind using lead-based solder (easier than lead-free), 63/37 with a mild flux is probably the best choice. It’s my understanding (please correct if wrong!) that the entire industry switched from 60/40 to 63/37 (extra tin costs more) a decade or so ago due to improved performance in mass SMT soldering. I haven’t noticed any significant difference in through-hole soldering, although many others claim differently. If you drill down in our basic soldering guide , there’s a lot more information. We sell Kester brand solder, and haven’t done any sort of scientific testing, but tend to believe their flux does a slightly better job. On the other hand, just about any solder will probably do the job—I used RadioShack for years… there’s a lot to say, our soldering forum would probably be a better spot for more questions.

One more thing, as explained in our soldering basics , I don’t think silver-bearing (containing) solder is significantly stronger or has significantly higher conductivity.

And finally, I’d avoid water-soluble solder (this means the flux is water soluble) since the flux residues must be cleaned afterwords to prevent corrosion. Some metals and older parts will require the more aggressive flux, though.

Thank you so very much! Excellent guides and video quality. I am so glad to have found your site.

Very professional and high quality, and informative video. Much appreciated!

Thanks for the great and helpful video. People who criticize the accent need to get a life ;)

This video is well produced and of high quality. I now feel confident enough to reattach a surface mount resistor i knocked off my motherboard during cpu fan installation (and i know what to call it!). naturally i want to do the repair myself to save the expense of a new board. thanks for the video!

Very professional and informative video. Thanks and keep it coming!

Without a doubt, the finest soldering video I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a number of them. Great quality narration, video, and choice of subjects. It’s good to view a number of different sources, but your choice of material and compilation is terrific and your presentation and media quality the best I’ve seen-thanks. I’ll steer my friends your way- oh, thanks also for the blazing fast delivery of my order. I didn’t expect to have it to work with this soon!