Getting electronic components

[irving2008]

What a good idea. I was going to ask how you got on with the SMD bit. I'd heard that you had to glue them on first, which could be a problem if u accidently fry it whilst soldering.

So had I, but I was also concerned about getting a thin enough area of glue so that the chip sat down on the pad and not gettng glue where it shouldnt be. Glue and I are not compatible!

The idea above is not mine, Phil outlines it in the assembly guidance for his boards, but I adapted it to what I had - the coat hanger wire is a tad too thick but its all I had to hand. here are some more pics, showing one of the 1206-style chip capacitors in its protective strip and the chip held to the board by the wire device (but not finally positioned yet)

[tribbles]

I don't use SMD bits for soldering SMD - I use a pair of normally closed tweezers, and a soldering iron with a 1mm tip on it. Works very well (well enough for those 80-pin 0.5mm spaced PICs).

0604 is the smallest I've done for resistors, but I tend to use 0805s instead (and 1206 if I need a bit of current).

I did buy some 4-resistor 0402s for a project, and also to see how I get on with them.

[Ross77]

Cheers guys. I need to know more so i will start a new tread tommorow on SMD. If its that easy then I can see this being worth while. SMD seems alot cheaper.......

Have you seen the guys on the net using hotel style toasters for smd?

[tribbles]

Cheers guys. I need to know more so i will start a new tread tommorow on SMD. If its that easy then I can see this being worth while. SMD seems alot cheaper.......

Have you seen the guys on the net using hotel style toasters for smd?

Will wait for thread - I've been doing SMD for quite a while now, and prefer it to PTH.

The toasters are, to me, a bit of an overkill, and it's basically making your own reflow oven - it's good if you've got a lot of components to do, since they are done at the same time, but for the numbers I do, it's not something I need. The two key components (in addition to the tweezers) I have are a temperature controlled soldering iron (with plenty of power), and some desolder braid.

Although having said that, I do have some (prospective) projects that have a large component count, and would benefit from it.