Originally published at: https://contextualelectronics.com/lessons/assembling-a-simple-circuit-board-with-smd-components/
Starter equipment: Aoyue 937 Soldering Iron Solder Kester 66/37, Rosin Core Solder Roll (will last you many years) Kester 60/40, Rosin Core small pack (will last you a few projects) Solder tip cleaner SMD tweezer set Not mentioned but also good to have: Flux pen
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Great video and thanks for including Amazon links!
Soldering is such an individual thing. Maybe it was because you were creating a video but I thought you were holding the iron on for too long especially with the LEDS at 13s and 14s. Some components specify 10s max. OK I am being fussy but I thought I would constructively mention it.
I’ve actually never seen that spec’d before. That refers to hand soldering and not reflow times?
Not all manufacturers specify soldering times and temperatures for hand soldering. It does seem to be hit and miss. Maybe older components are more likely to have soldering time limits since most assembly is automated these days.
As an example if you look at the datasheet in the link below on page 2 you will see hand soldering specified with a maximum tip temperature of 350c a dwell time of under 3 seconds, and the number of times the part can be soldered is just once.
http://www.alps.com/prod/info/E/HTML/Encoder/Absolute/EC18A/EC18AGB20401.html
There is so much information in datasheets but soldering times is something to be aware of and look out for.
Heya! I got here from the 20 min. KiCAD design video. It’s really nice. One thing I learned that changed the way I do soldering is about eutectic solders. Since you are using leaded solder, use 37/63 - this type of alloy has the property that it goes from liquid to solid state instantaneous - skipping the gelly phase that the more common 40/60 has in between. You’ll be less likely to move components which you thought are soldered, and less likely to have cold joints.
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fyi, the SMD tweezer link on this page Assembling a simple circuit board with SMD components says “page not found” on amazon now.