EEVblog #431 - PCB Wave Soldering

Extended commentary on PCB surface mount wave soldering on the Fluke 91 Scopemeter.

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[robertbackhaus]

You'll also notice that there is more solder on the right-hand end of all the horizontally mounted passives too.

[EEVblog]

I agree that some (many?/all?) of my videos do "go on a bit", and that's the nature of the off-the-cuff style. I think I'm getting better at it, and more concious of time. The trade off is being able to keep the off-the-cuff style, and avoid retakes if possible, or doing any sort of rehearsing/scripting. The quick and polished videos you see on youtube take a lot of time to produce, so the trick is to get as close to that without having to do all the work...

[tarsius]

Please scrutinize my comment. I'm not asking for his videos to be shorter, I'm suggesting he consider posting both an original vlog and *additionally* either a "highlights" version of the same vlog or simply chopped-up segments of the vlog so you can decide which portions to watch. I certainly don't want to cramp Dave's style.

[homerthompson]

You basically just covered everything I've just read in an SMT book. Thanks.

[tarsius]

Just wanted to let you know I appreciate these short videos. I usually pass on watching your videos since they're generally quite long (15+ mins). I understand you can't please everyone, but if you manage to find a way to post short edits of your vlogs or simply break them into themed, bite-sized (<10 mins) clips like this, you can be sure I'll watch more often. Great video, Dave :)

[overengineer]

I feel like there is some really obvious thing missing here. Do they flip the board over to solder it? How do all the components not fall off? How does the solder not burn them? What if some components have metal in places other than pins?

[EEVblog]

I will try and split out videos were I can. This one was a classic example. An already long video, with a 6 minute tangent on wave soldering that has appeal outside of the teardown. So it was a natural to just split it out.

[rotlerin]

Sorry to be a bit thick, but I followed your explanation of this wave solder process and didn't fully understand it so I just watched another video of it on youtube. It would appear that if the legs of the ICs are to be soldered then the board would have to be upside down and the whole chip submerged in solder. Surely that's not right. What did I miss here?

[linksmith]

I see wave soldered boards on a daily basis. I clean and maintain an Electra Wave solder machine at work. It makes quite nice joints, but it does bridge smaller ICs a lot. Hence our touch up stations to ensure the solder quality.

[villages]

That red glue under the components is super tuff stuff. It feels like they're welded and trying to remove those components using hot air station is tough.

[agnirudrapal]

does the plastic like material on the top of the trimpots not melt when the wave goes over?

[mlac]

So well explained, Dave for president!

[EEVblog]

Nope, I use old reels of whatever was left over from various work jobs.

[uniment]

That's why they're glued to the PCB. Something needs to hold the chips to the board while it's upside-down.

[HooLooVu]

Nice educational video!
One question : How do they solder the really tiny stuff like cell phone boards?

[petermichaelgreen]

"The board have plenty of through hole components on the oppsite side (solder pads in the same side of SMD), so cannot figure the way solder using reflow, "

One option is make a tray which masks off the areas where the surface mount components are so that you can wave solder the through hole stuff without impacting the surface mount stuff.

I've also heard there are machines that can apply wave soldering to only small parts of a board.

[smling]

Instead of wave solder move, view the larger accumulation of solder as the board leaving the solder bath.

[za_ozero]

What can be said about orientation of soldering machine against Earths poles? :-D

[alicangul]

This was very helpful. Thank you Dave.

[KSITREVS]

Here is a question Dave, I am guessing you always use the best of the best solder. How much do you pay for a 100g reel? I dont have a lot of money and i spend 3 uk pounds for a 100 g reel! Love ya videos still x