10 responses to “EEVblog #415 – SMD Stencil Reflow Soldering Tutorial”

• ninonpas January 25th, 2013 at 19:24

  hi dave
  it looks like pin5 of U1 (WF24) hasn’t reflowed,
  paste looks still flat and doesn’t shine like the other pins
  thanks for another great video !

  Reply

• William Rowlands January 25th, 2013 at 23:47

  HI David thank you for all the information I have learned from you. I have been sick for three years and you have a must see video every dayI I am a DC electrician by trade again thank you and greetings from IRELAND

  Reply

• Felix Rusu January 26th, 2013 at 01:23

  Good stuff, I’m surprised that the steel laser cut stencil doesn’t do a much better job than my home made etched beverage can aluminum stencils (spreading the paste). But solder pasting is very forgiving so that really helps.
  Here’s how I make cheap metal stencils at home: http://lowpowerlab.com/blog/2013/01/23/diy-home-made-metal-stencils-step-through/

  -Felix

  Reply

• Allan January 26th, 2013 at 08:01

  By watching this video I learned the magic of solder mask. Brilliant!

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• Alan Parekh January 26th, 2013 at 17:01

  Looks like that cheap heat gun was worth every penny. What do people do when there are huge ground planes in the board that suck all the heat? Is an oven the only way in that case? I have never tried it myself but I remember desoldering a terminal block on one particular board years ago and every second terminal was connected to a huge thick ground plane and it took 5 or 6 times as long with a powerful iron to get it hot enough to use a solder sucker.

  Reply

  • Russ January 27th, 2013 at 21:25

    In that case you can put the board on a pre-heater. If you are cheap, you can probably use a skillet as a pre-heater (or just to reflow)

    Reply

• salec January 27th, 2013 at 04:48

  Would a squeegee do a better job then spatula, or are they too wide for the purpose?

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• macpod January 27th, 2013 at 06:05

  In a pinch, I like to use a razor blade to spread paste on stainless steel and kapton stencils.

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• f4eru January 27th, 2013 at 10:48

  for the LED polarity marking problem:

  http://blog.screamingcircuits.com/2013/01/how-not-to-mark-a-diode.html

  Reply

• Malcolm January 29th, 2013 at 11:11

  Great tutorial, I have been afraid of soldering SMC and now feel absolutely confident. Big Thumbs Up!!!

  Reply

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  DIY SMD Metal Stencil using a Pop Can - Hacked Gadgets – DIY Tech Blog February 3rd, 2013 at 14:08

  [...] Using Muriatic Acid (found at your local hardware store) and Hydrogen Peroxide (found at your local drug store) Felix Rusu from LowPowerLab was able to make a DIY SMD Metal Stencil using a Pop Can. He cut out a section of the aluminum can wall and transferred the SMD pad image to the metal using the toner transfer method. Touching up some of the imperfect areas of the transfer with a sharpie marker was needed in a few imperfect places. A quick soak in the acid solution ate through the metal in the areas that were not protected by the toner or marker. As you can see the results are quite good. Felix uses an oven to reflow his parts but you could also reflow the SMD parts using a heat gun as Dave recently demonstrated. [...]