While the normal way of applying solder paste to your boards is with a metal stencil (or perhaps a cheaper plastic stencil for one off prototypes), if your board only has a couple dozen components or you are pressed for time, it may end up being more time consuming than it’s worth to have a real stencil made. Thankfully, solder paste stencils aren’t the only feasible way to accurately apply solder paste to you board. With only a few inexpensive pieces of equipment (and a bit of patience) you can just as easily apply the solder paste by hand
Halloween season is here! Check out all the posts, gift guides, and more!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!
Join over 38,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord
CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org
New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — NEW PRODUCT – Adafruit RP2350 22-pin FPC HSTX to DVI Adapter for HDMI Displays
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Adafruit Grand Opening, Profile MicroPython Memory and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi — Classic editor
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
Adafruit IoT Monthly — Garden Lights, Bluetooth 6.0, and more!
Maker Business – Adafruit Daily — A look at Boeing’s supply chain and manufacturing process
Electronics – Adafruit Daily — When do I use X10?
Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !
6 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I’ve done dozens of boards this way. For really fine pitch components, you can run a thin bead of solder along the area for the pins, and the surface tension will bead the solder up around the pins (see this article). Of course, plan on having solder wick handy to mop up the inevitable bridges…
Limor, can you comment on which tools and paste you are using? Trying to track down a good syringe for applying paste…
harvest, did you read the article? 😉
J. Peterson:
Ya … you just need to lay down one long continuous line of paste across the middle of the pads on 0.5mm parts like QFP. You sometimes get bridges (though that’s the case even with stencils) but they’re easy to clean up, and I still find it preferable to hand-soldering certain parts since you need a 350-400
Hmmm … my comment got cut in half. Moral of the story: I added a video to the page on removing bridges on QFP parts as well if it helps anyone.
Zephyrtronics http://zeph.com/ has everything for SMD rework and you can get both normal and power plungers for their syringes.
The specific page for this stuff is here:
http://www.zeph.com/chem_direct.htm