The hand soldering footprints for SMD parts (eg 0603) looks like a good idea to me. Does anyone have experience if these same hand soldering footprints work well with reflow soldering?
The main distinction is that pads intended for hand-soldering are enlarged in the direction away from the component body, to allow more contact area between a soldering iron tip and the copper pad. When used in a reflow process, a hand-solder pad will have extra solder paste applied if the stencil is cut using standard guidelines. This may, or may not, be a problem with your particular reflow process. If it’s a problem you can define a smaller mask opening on the footprint.
I have no problem using hand-solder pads in a reflow process, but my “reflow process” uses manual stenciling, and an electric skillet for the “table-top reflow oven”.
Dale
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As dchisholm already wrote, it influences the amount of solder paste on the pads.
Solder stencils also come in different thicknesses, and you can possibly order a thinner stencil (different manufacturer?) to compensate for the larger pads.
Larger pads can also increase the risk of tombstoning. This is because the solder will flow over the full exposed pad even if paste is reduced.
Thinner stencils will not help here at all. Having a stencil with paste offset toward the inside (heel) will reduce this effect. (The hope is that the solder will in this case first pull on down on the inside.)
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