opinions on surface mount components

j9k · Joined: Sep 18, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: san diego

opamps
resistors
caps
matched transistors

is it worth it to save space or are they just to much of a hassle.

the main reason i'm asking is i found some ssm2210 ssm2220 opa604 and opa2604 in soic8 packages at a surplus store.

in the case of the ssm2210 would they be more susceptible to temperature fluctuations than the dip package. are they worth it.

yusynth · Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 1314 Location: France

j9k · Joined: Sep 18, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: san diego

Really good point beyond the electrical aspects of a circuit. All of the parts I own are through hole.

I also had to cut some new boards so I can prototype with the ssm2210 . The price and quantity I can get them at may make it worth it to use them anyway if there are not any electrical drawbacks to surfacemount components

Thanks for the reply

DrJustice · Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:33 am Post subject:

AFAIK there aren't any electrical drawbacks to surfacemount components. As mentioned repairs can be tricky, and if soldering by hand there's a risk of making hard to find shorts, often between pins of ICs.

One alternative to hand soldering is using a cheap electric toster oven or skillet to make your own reflow soldering statioin. This works rather well. Have a look at some of these sites .

DJ
--

j9k · Joined: Sep 18, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: san diego

Cool. I picked up all the ssm 2210's about 500 in all. Heheheeeeeeeeeee. I guess I'll have a ton of filters soon. Now I just have to figure out the tempco aspects

fonik · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:38 pm Post subject:

i recently stuffed a PCB with some surface mount components: 4 dual OpAmps with associated decoupling caps, some resistors... it worked very fine with my simple 0.8mm soldering iron and special SMT solder . i actually would say it went faster than thru hole (no bending, clipping of the legs).
however, i used 1206 packages, which are not too small.

Inventor · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:58 pm Post subject:

As a young Co-Op, they trained me in surface mount and I did occasional tiny work, eventually soldering 0402 parts on teeny little injectable circuit boards prototypes. We wound little bitty coil antennas on tiny ferrite rods and used those national semiconductor flip chips.

With the right tools, magnification, and supplies it's no problem to do surface mount. Trouble is, lots of hobbyists don't have all that stuff. Sounds like Fonik is doing it without too much trouble though.

Les

j9k · Joined: Sep 18, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: san diego

http://sites.google.com/site/j9kj9kj9k/Home/cnc-router

made some little boards yesterday for the ssm2210 and another for opa2604 for prototyping. looks fairly decent.

i used the free version of eagle and "pcb to gcode ulp" which i feel will limit me from going crazy.the max board size is a 4"x3" area.

pic at the bottom of the page

Inventor · Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2009 8:55 pm Post subject:

Dude, you got your own cnc router? How cool is that?

Les

j9k · Joined: Sep 18, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: san diego

i figured i would save money and mainly time with it and not to mention being able to make changes on the fly. i also plan to make all of my panels and knobs with it too.

the max area i can handle is 12x24x5

françois · Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:22 am Post subject:

Hello,

As a workaround, most suppliers provide SMD-to-DIL adapters (e.g. Conrad). You surface-mount the chip on a small board that has through-hole pins. Of course, the pinout of the SMD and its DIL equivalent are not the same. I didn't test it though.

-- françois

diablojoy · Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 3:18 am Post subject:

drag soldering works well on SMD
basically you solder all pins together one side of chip at a time
then go back over with solder braid and clean most of it off again
the solder should only remain under the pins on the tracks
the only hard part is locating the chip correctly in the first place
and keeping it there for which i simply use blue tack on the opposite side until i have one side soldered with a bit of practice it is very quick and very neat. there is a demo video on the midibox site that is good to check out.
I use my normal 20W iron and 0.71 mm solder and 1.5 mm solder braid, a good magnifier is a must though, but these days i need one anyway Wink

fonik · Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:55 pm Post subject:

Inventor · Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:30 am Post subject:

I'm with fonik, in me own way. I'd like to see DIY'ers going surface mount. I'm up against some severely restrictive limitations on board size at this moment, and SMT parts would help that a lot. Not sure how the DIY community would react to that however.

Les

françois · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:48 am Post subject:

fonik · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 3:18 am Post subject:

Sound · Joined: Jun 06, 2006 Posts: 842 Audio files: 1

Uauuuu. Very interesting thread!

Yes Im interested in go to SMD, And just wanted start making myself some kind adapter to matched smd pairs to dip.
Like did J9K. Thanks for share J9K. Also surprised me, first time I see use a cnc machine for "etch" the PCB.
Well, glad to read that it is already manufactured and you can buy it. I will make a research.
I was interested in adapt this matched pair philips. NXP.
http://gr.mouser.com/NXP/Semiconductors/Transistors-FETs-Bipolars-IGBTs/Bipolar-Transistors/_/N-2xpqhZ1z0zl8bZscv7?Keyword=MATCHED+PAIR

So although that for what I read here, one can start solder SMD with no special instrumentation, But what you would recommend for start? I mean kind of glass maximizer, kind of solder, Kind of surface components (the more bigs?) etc.

Regards. Very Happy

fonik · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 6:21 am Post subject:

Sound · Joined: Jun 06, 2006 Posts: 842 Audio files: 1

What solder you use Fonik?

By the way... is it what you are looking for?

http://gr.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Mill-Max/214-44-308-01-670800/?qs=IGgAdOvCTsRJb5jA%2fCrDPQ%3d%3d

fonik · Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 7:15 am Post subject:

fretless · Joined: Nov 29, 2009 Posts: 19 Location: Boston

I like to use 0805 resistors on a double sided board. 0805 ceramic bypass caps are also very useful. SOP ICs are OK. I can't go much smaller than that without the expensive soldering irons and microscopes, which I don't have. Smaller SMT technology really needs a solder mask, in case a cleanup is needed. That would mean an IC adapter for interesting ICs, or a PCB fab.

I try to use PCB mount pots and then put all the SMT stuff on the other layer under the pots. This saves a lot of space. Making a double sided with iron-on is iffy, but no major disasters yet. I etch one side and protect the other with self adhesive shelf paper. After, I drill out two diagonal corner pads the diameter of a sewing pin. Then I pin the transfer onto the second side and stick it to the copper with the nose of the iron, and then iron with earnest after the pins are removed. 0805 pads can connect to a .024 trace without too much trouble and .024 is not risky for toner transfer.

No problem mixing through-hole and surface mount except for assuming that every through hole is a plated through hole. I tend to make this mistake with radial electrolytic caps which cannot be soldered from the component side.

fretless · Joined: Nov 29, 2009 Posts: 19 Location: Boston

One section of a biquad filter. The Alps pots are set on a 0.75 inch spacing.
Component side and solder side. I might possibly skip the cost of the knobs, in which case this cost about $12.

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