Learning SMT

I've finally dove into surface mount soldering, smt. I built a few kits. Mostly silly stuff.

First I tried this basic SMT training kit that has a blinking red/green led.
It had to get a second kit. Not sure what I did.

The Executive Decision Maker by Elenco. It worked great. I did not do any rework.


These first two kits I used a needle point soldering tip. It was just too fine.

Then when I took a second shot at the SMT Trainging Kit I bought a tip that worked great for SMT. A very fine chisel tip.

I also tried this IR receiver kit. I fried a transistor. Not a good thing. I'll probably try it again.


I learned to tape down the part the a small strip of blue masking tape. That really helped.

I was also using a Magnifier head visor. And a really strong halogen desklamp.

I just built a practical kit for testing radio equipment. A signal tester. It produces a S1 or S9 signal on 4 ham frequencies. Great for testing new receivers. I made a few mistakes on this one. I swapped a cap and a resister. Resoldering surface mount stuff is not easy. In using the solder tip for surface mount I badly soldered the crystals in. I had to rework those.

So never be in a rush or lazy. Swap those tips.

I do have to say, do not cheap out on yor tools. I started with the cheap red weller soldering station. After I decided it was a piece of crap, I bought a HAKO 936 with a 907 handle. It has temperature control and the tips are heated by a ceramic element. This is a really good soldering iron that maintains temperature while putting a project together for an hour or two.

I also use a brass, dry, cleaner for the tip. Not a sponge.

So, if you are not willing to sacrifice a toaster oven, masking tape, and a really good soldering iron with a fine tip are your friends.