Common tools for manual soldering of SMD components
1. Electric soldering iron
Hand soldering components, this is definitely essential. Here, we recommend the one with a sharper tip, because when soldering a chip with dense pins, it can accurately and conveniently solder one or several pins.
2. Solder wire
A good solder wire is also very important for SMD welding. If conditions permit, use as thin solder wire as possible when soldering SMD components, so that it is easy to control the amount of tin supplied, so that there is no need to waste the trouble of soldering and absorbing tin.
3. Tweezers
The main function of tweezers is to easily pick up and place SMD components. For example, when soldering SMD resistors, tweezers can be used to clamp the resistors and place them on the circuit board for welding. Tweezers need to be pointed and flat to facilitate gripping components. In addition, for some chips that need to be protected from static electricity, anti-static tweezers are required.
4. Tin suction tape
When soldering SMD components, it is easy to have too much tin.
Especially when soldering dense multi-pin SMD chips, it is easy to cause two adjacent pins or even multiple pins of the chip to be short-circuited by solder. At this time, the traditional tin suction device is useless, and the braided tin suction tape needs to be used at this time.
Solder strips can be bought from places that sell soldering equipment. If you don't have them, you can replace them with copper wires in the wires, which will be described later.
5. Rosin
Rosin is the most commonly used flux in soldering, because it can precipitate oxides in the solder, protect the solder from being oxidized, and increase the fluidity of the solder. When soldering in-line components, if the components are rusted, they should be scraped off first, put on the rosin and ironed with a soldering iron, and then tinned. When soldering SMD components, rosin can also be used as a tin absorber with copper wire in addition to the flux.
6. Solder paste
When soldering hard-to-tin iron and other items, solder paste can be used, which can remove oxides on the metal surface, which is corrosive.
When soldering SMD components, it can sometimes be used to "eat" solder to make the solder shiny and firm.
7. Heat gun
A hot air gun is a tool that uses the hot air blown from its gun core to weld and disassemble components. The process requirements for its use are relatively high.
Heat guns can be used for everything from removing or installing small components to large pieces of integrated circuits. In different occasions, there are special requirements for the temperature and air volume of the hot air gun. If the temperature is too low, the components will be soldered. If the temperature is too high, the components and circuit boards will be damaged. Excessive air volume will blow away small components. For ordinary patch welding, a hot air gun is not required, and will not be described in detail here.
8. Magnifying glass
For some SMD chips with particularly small and dense pins, after welding, it is necessary to check whether the pins are soldered normally and whether there is a short circuit. At this time, it is very laborious to use the human eye, so a magnifying glass can be used, so as to conveniently and reliably view each Soldering of the pins.
9. Alcohol
When using rosin as a flux, it is easy to leave excess rosin on the board. In order to be beautiful, at this time, you can use alcohol cotton ball to clean the place with residual rosin. Hard bristle brush, glue, etc. I won't go into details here, and friends who have the conditions can go to understand and use it in hands-on practice.
(From left to right, the first row is: heat gun, tweezers, solder wire. The second row is: electric soldering iron, rosin, tin suction tape)
