Homebrew PCBs

> ST wrote:
> Which hot air tool do you have?
> We plan to puchase SMD tools at
> work, and i am looking for likely 
> candidates.

Most of my soldering equipment is
Hako, however I bought a cheap
hot air gun that is a chinese rip-
off of the Hako.  It works fine
but is noisy and the handle has
melted a bit.  Next time I am
ordering more Hako parts I will
get a real one and one of their
little hot plates to preheat the
board with.


> The only time i tried to tin a
> QFN part with 60/40 and iron i 
> promptly ripped out one of the
> pads of the IC. Suffice to say
> first thing i did was order a
> syringe of SMD paste.

I have yet to rip a pad off but
I guess it is something to look
forward too.

> <SNIP about different option>
> I'm wondering what will be most
> useful.

Hot air tool is probably most
general purpose.  You can rework
and do small production runs.

You can't rework with an oven but
is going to be quicker for runs
of boards especially if you have
stencils.

Hotplate is helpful but not
esential when using the hot air
rework tool.

> <SNIP>
> Stupidly i just bought 1.5kg of
> solder that doesn't have very
> good flux, or possibly too
> little. I especially ordered the
> more expensive solder with 5
> flux cores (Edsyn), expecting
> to get something good, that it
> will wet well, but it turns out
> the opposite is true. The total
> percentage of flux is much lower
> than with the old solder. It
> will take years to use it all up.....

Throw it away.  The amount of money
wasted is probably not worth the
torn out hair :)