solder alternative?

[JonnyBoats]

OK, this is a real off the wall question:

Are there alternatives to solder for mounting a surface mount components to a PCB?

What I am thinking of is something like a conductive crazy glue of something similar.

My interest would be for quick prototypes, not production work.

[Dago]

What are you hoping to achieve with this alternative?

Conductive glue (if that would exist in a form that would be useful) would seem just a slower alternative of just using solder paste and an oven. Glue would take much longer to cure than using a reflow oven (3-4 minutes). And you can use a toaster oven/pizza oven as a reflow oven and they cost 50$ max.

[mr_monster]

Personally I think this is very unpractical... There are commercially available conductive glues, they contain carbon powder and some other spices. Note that they're conductivity is much worse than any kind of solder or wire.

[mikeselectricstuff]

You can get silver based epoxy and inks, which are conductive enough to use as solder substitutes but they are expensive and would only normally be used where solder can't for thermal reasons, e.g. on plastic substrates

[JonnyBoats]

> What are you hoping to achieve with this alternative?

One example would be to add a bypass cap to the back side of an existing board with components already mounted on the front (top) side.

I am not looking to replace solder in general, rather I am trying to think about special situations where this would give another option in addition to solder.

[mikeselectricstuff]

> What are you hoping to achieve with this alternative?

One example would be to add a bypass cap to the back side of an existing board with components already mounted on the front (top) side.

I am not looking to replace solder in general, rather I am trying to think about special situations where this would give another option in addition to solder.

Why would you not solder it?

For double sided assy you reflow the side with the smallest parts first, turn over and repeat - surface tension stops the parts falling off on the second reflow.