I got a small humidity sensor from TI, HTC 1080 digital humidity sensor. I want to use it on an Arduino project and I have the issue where I don't have such a small soldering iron or the appropriate wires. What wires can i use and what's the best way to solder it without having to buy an expensive soldering iron for smd?
Here is a picture of the sensor next to a cat 5 up cable:
i'm by no means an expert and if this is your first attempt at soldering i hope you bought a lot of extras.
personally, i would try solid wire, maybe 24-30 awg, put some solder on the pads first then roll the wire into the pad.
Solder paste should make your life a little easier too.
I don't have such a small soldering iron or the appropriate wires
Old Workaround: Clean your big iron. Find a piece of solid copper wire that's about #14 or smaller and maybe 1 or 2 inches long. File one end to a point. Wrap that wire around you big iron near the tip, with about 1 inch sticking out. Heat the iron and flow solder on the iron tip and the wrapped wire, and get solder on the thinner wire sticking out. Use it as soldering iron.
I used this idea once to solder DIP ICs with a 100 watt Weller iron.
NOW I have a real nice Hakko 
That sensor is intended for mounting on a PCB, not for having wires soldered to it.
You could mount it on a break-out board, such as this one. It's not designed for that package, but the pin spacing looks correct. I think you would have to modify it by shortening the pads, so that they don't make contact with the thermal pad on the underside.
Another solution would be to get the sensor already mounted on a breakout board. They appear to be readily available.
I was going to suggest gluing it down in dead-bug mode (legs in the air, even though it doesn't actually have legs) but that sensor probably has a hole on the top that you want exposed to the air, doesn't it?
Custom PCBs at places like OSHPark are so good and so convenient that if you can wait a week, you can have a proper PCB to solder this to. Making your own breakout is a good way to learn a PCB design program like Eagle and it costs so little that it doesn't matter if you screw up the first one.
Hi,
Any reason for a SMD sensor?
Would a DHT22 been just as good?
Tom...
TomGeorge: The 1080 is a more accurate sensor from what I gather.
MorganS & JohnLincoln: How can I make sure the board I get will fit my sensor? I see the sensor info says its a DMB Package, 6 Pin PWSON, whatever that means. But the sparkfun link provided says its a SOT23 to DIP. The link to the sensor (http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/hdc1080.pdf) says the full size top to bottom is 3mm, with a 1mm distance between pads.
terryKing228 & Qdeathstar: The filed copper wire tip and rolling wire onto pre-soldered pad sound easy enough to try, and yes, I do have extras.
Its probably only more accurate if reflow soldered to the recommended profile. Converted toaster oven and a
PCB is really the only sane way to handle DFN parts like this. Solder paste in sparing amounts only. Lots of
PCB houses will do stencils these days, I believe OSHpark do now?
I have used OSH Stencils a lot. They are not related to OSHPark despite the similar name. Turnaround is very fast.
To design a PCB in Eagle you would need to find or create a library part for it. Often you can copy the footprint from an identical package and then you only need to draw a schematic symbol for it.
Get a SMD to DIP adapter at www.proto-advantage.com
They will even buy the part from Digikey and mount it on the board for you if you can't solder the really small stuff.
MorganS:
I have used OSH Stencils a lot. They are not related to OSHPark despite the similar name. Turnaround is very fast.
My bad - I haven't used them. (Purple is not a cool PCB colour I reckon!)
Crossroads
Will a smd to dip adapter work for that dmb design? Wouldn't it have to be a dmb to dip adapter? Well I emailed pro-advantage about it.
