JoeN
July 2, 2012, 8:38pm
13
I always buy the cheapest flux that say "lead free" and "no clean". And yes, this stuff is always pretty expensive. But it last pretty very long. At least for me.
The approach is to soak everything with flux.
Then put solder on the tip and smear it over the pins. Surface tension will suck the solder in.
In order for this to work the tip must be sufficiently big otherwise it does not carry enough solder and it will cool down to fast.
The only issue is that this approach tends to create solder bridges. Thus as a final step check for solder bridges and if you find any apply braid.
This yields consistently good results and is much simpler than it sounds. After my second SMD chip I got the hang of it and I will not use any other method any more (except for solder paste + oven).
I see what you say about applying flux, then solder, then the braid in the text tutorial you linked. But, in the video, I don't see the demonstrator applying solder at all. So how is the guy in the video getting the pins to stick down?