Surface Mount Reflow Tutorial/Class

Came across this video on surface mount reflow.

https://twitter.com/MG/status/1152317329646088192

When are you going to teach that class @artg_dms ?

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Nice! I think this just became my new favorite video to link to introduce surface mount soldering.

I have to play devil’s advocate here and point to the video you linked. It really is as easy as he makes it look. He even went a bit hard-mode with the spoon and candle, I think just to demonstrate that the process really is very insensitive to variations in technique.

We do have a reflow oven on one of the benches in the elab, and two of the benches have hot air. I’d recommend starting with the hot air as it’s more like the spoon and candle method in the video in that you can actually watch and manipulate the parts as they reflow, whereas the oven is more hands-off. The oven has very poor visibility while it’s reflowing, and no ability to reach in and manipulate parts.

Maybe some day there will be regular classes for surface mount soldering, but in the mean time I’m super happy to show anyone how to do it any time I’m at the space. Usually when I’m here I’m doing unscheduled office hours in the elab for exactly this sort of reason. But it really is as easy as slathering on some solder paste and applying heat, just like the video shows. For sure, through-hole soldering takes more time to master than surface-mount.

Somewhere we have some (old) solder paste but I haven’t seen it since the expansion. Now that we’re next to @Team_Science I’m hoping they’ll let us store a small container of paste in their fridge since it’s hard for electronics to justify having a fridge just for one thing, but I haven’t asked yet. If we can arrange that, I’ll make sure we always have fresh solder paste in stock.