Homebrew PCBs

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009, Adam Seychell wrote:

> Do you apply a continuous trail of solder paste along each row of pads
> of a quad plat pack IC ? If so you you use a syringe to apply the paste ?.
> I found it easier to just use solder wire and dragging the iron across.
> There are many videos on the net showing this method.

Yes and yes. I used to do drag soldering but the problem I found was after
carefully lining up the IC, it was very easy to knock it out of alignment
with the pads while trying to tack down the first couple of pins. Using
paste and hot air, that problem didn't happen. (I also do all the discrete
components at the same time - I use 0603 generally, and the paste/hot air
does a very neat job).