Self heating boards for soldering

OK. Not Kicad. This might be useful for small one off projects? If nothing else, it is quite an innovative technique?

Basically you have make one plane a big resistor and apply power. Ground at the end. Seems this would limit circuits, but still …

Very clever! :+1: I look forward to self PnP boards any day now. :rofl:

TBH, this doesn’t use very useful, a reflow oven, heated plate or hot air gun isn’t that complicated or expensive, and that approach seems to limit your available planes and via locations by a lot.

Like it’s a neat hack but not very practical.

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It is quite a weird Idea and for that I do like it, but I agree with Jonathan_Haas that it’s not very practical. Going to a 4 layer PCB and then sacrificing a layer for the heating is very likely a too big sacrifice to make it useful. On top of that, anyone soldering PCB’s would at least have a soldering Iron or a hot air gun to do the same job.

The minimum Idea I like for soldering whole boards in one go is a skillet with a layer of fine sand in it. You can even do double sided boards with it. Just do one side first, reverse the PCB and press the parts into the sand and then do the other side.

I’m not sure whether a skillet would be a better or worse alternative to a toaster oven.

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I figured it was novel enough to look at since automatic heater layer is going to be a requested feature in 6 months time. :wink:

Getting. Copper place upto 250 C or more and ensuring heat distribution to the front and back signal layers. “ ye canna break the laws of physics captain “

It’s simply untenable

You only need to heat the top. Parts would fall off the bottom.

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Now that is a neat idea :+1:Flip the board over and the fine sand holds it all together :magic_wand:
Andy

Quote for launchpad!

At least a 4 layer board with no parts populated on the bottom layer.

It is ONLY a little bit more pricey…

…to avoid any hand soldering… even…

If the info is on the interwebs it must be true… :crazy_face:

Hmm. Sounds like self-delaminating boards to me :slight_smile:

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Delamination can start as low as 260°C (over extented periods). Besides this, the moisture in the board can/will lead to bubbles (the reason why PCBs that have been stored for quite a while in non-controlled environments are baked at 70° before reflow soldering)

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FWIW: for JLCPCB it’s around $7 for 100x100 prototype. Ordered it a lot myself.

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I think most of you didn’t watch the video. He says he is using low temp solder and is heating to 160ish

I went the old toaster route. I had one where one coil burned out so it got replaced in my kitchen. I did some time and temperature curves and found that it came very close to the heat cycle that is recommended for surface mount soldering. It works like a charm.

It is a somewhat strange idea, and I enjoy it. Moving to a 4-layer PCB and then giving up a layer for the heating is too expensive to be helpful. And anyone soldering PCBs would, at the very least, have a soldering iron or a hot air cannon to perform the same task. The bare minimum method I favour for soldering entire circuit boards at once is a skillet filled with fine sand. You may also use it to create double-sided boards. Do one side, flip the PCB over, and press the pieces into the sand before moving on to the other side.

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