💬 nRF52 Development Board
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@openhardware.io Great to have your board...on board
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@onehorse
How did you solder it? I know that using solder stencils and reflow oven are a popular approach, but how did you even accurately align and place the parts before soldering it? That's the part that frustrates me when the pin pitch and even the parts themselves are so tiny. I feel as though I would need some kind of jig or something to asist me to really dial it in.
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@onehorse Please add all development files for this board to the project, as that's the whole idea about open hardware!
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@NeverDie in theory the surface tension of molten tin should pull the pieces into place, that's what I have seen even if I never done it myself
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I've done this kind of soldering myself and it works with no problems thanks to the laws of physics which @gohan already explained. You just need a little bit more patience when first aligning the component but it doesn't need to be perfectly aligned - the surface tension of the liquid solder will take care of it - just not use too much solder or solder paste though.
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@mtiutiu said in
nRF52 Development Board:it doesn't need to be perfectly aligned
Well, just how close to perfect does it need to be? No one seems to talk about that.
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@NeverDie said in
nRF52 Development Board:@mtiutiu said in
nRF52 Development Board:it doesn't need to be perfectly aligned
Well, just how close to perfect does it need to be? No one seems to talk about that.
I've seen it a few times, can be impressive like this one:
SMD Components self-align in toaster / skillet reflow – 01:54
— CuriousInventor
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I did it like this guy here: qfn soldering and it worked like a charm. Just be careful not to put too much solder on the pads. But if you use stencils and solder paste it should be much more easier.
I don't have a oven and I don't use stencils.
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@mtiutiu wow thank you for the link I didn't know it was possible like that
I'll sure test it as soon as possible, I'm restraining from ordering QFN at the moment, for fear of not beeing able to solder them. But this could change the deal.
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Which flux do you like to use best? The guy in the video says he used Multicore X32-10I
I unexpectedly got five free "bonus" nRF52832 chips with my nRF52832 DK, so I might as well give it a try. If the OP would post his gerber files, I could try it on his board. Otherwise, I might try it on sparkfun's board.
Do you get better results from pre-heating the board from underneath with a re-work heater? I don't yet have one of those, but maybe now is the time to get one....
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@NeverDie
I used flux paste like this one:
http://s.aliexpress.com/f67bIZb2And I didn't used preheating because I don't have such a tool. I did just like that guy explained in that video. That's how I soldered the mega328p qfn32 package on my serial gw from here: https://www.openhardware.io/view/316/MySensors-RFM69W-serial-GWATMEGA328P
It's not hard trust me.. just a little bit of patience and after that by practicing a little bit you'll gain experience and see that's just a piece of cake.
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@onehorse
Thanks for posting your gerber files. Do you have a BOM as well?
