[time-nuts] OT: 01005 Soldering Was: Low Cost GP-IB PCI card?

[John Day]

Jack,

At 03:03 PM 7/11/2006, you wrote:
>I have 2 questions below for your colleague.
>
>I hand solder 01005 as well from time to time, not anything 
>production mind you.
>Though I've never met or heard of anyone else doing this by hand; though I'm
>sure there are a few, this is a the first I've run across.

We are handling these sizes for prototyping also, we often only 
assemble one board before we pass the rest of the proto batch 
(usually 50) to our outside assembly house. Most of our routine work 
is only down to 0201. We go smaller and handle lots of flip-chips for 
microwave stuff. Sadly that business is getting smaller and smaller 
these days as the MMIC's get better and better.


>I've been using the poke and hope reflow method which give me 80% success
>without rework.
>I use an X/Y/Z/A pick and place setup (air pickup) I built; right now it's now
>manual due to time constraints.

Same here, we have XYZ tables we built about 5 of some years back - 
when we went to 0805 as I recall! It is manual as it is only used for 
prototyping and rework in the lab.

>  Make my own pickups from pipette's that are
>heated and drawn together forming 2 channels, one for vacuum and the other
>detects pickup (though I don't have this working very well but, not 
>a problem in
>manual).

We use commercial vacumn pickups. If I recall correctly most of the 
gear came from OK Industries about 5 years ago and we keep adding 
bits and pieces to it. You cannot reliably handle 0201 or 010005 
without vacumn. Tweezers are hopeless. Same for flipchips.


>Could you ask your colleague what soldering station he/she uses?
>Has he/she considered air pickup and if so what keeps them from using it?

If he is hand soldering I think it would be his Metcal. He has 
hot-air reflow on that as well as the standard handpiece and a Talon 
tweezer handpiece. He has 2 MX-500 units as well as a selection of 
vacumn pumps and compressors. There is also a Pace system and some 
Weller gear on his desk, but it doesn't seem to get much use these days.

I tend to work with bigger stuff so I am the hotplate and Metcal man.

John



>Thanks,
>Jack
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf
>Of Magnus Danielson
>Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 6:26 PM
>To: time-nuts at febo.com; johnday at wordsnimages.com
>Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Low Cost GP-IB PCI card?
>
>Hi John,
>
>May I only add that a dear friend and colleague of mine does 01005 soldering
>by hand under microscope. Fortunatly we don't have to use them yeat.
>
>For those that don't know the issue about 01005, let's just say they are
>tiny as hell and weighs in at 30 microgram each. If your tweecer isn't at the
>same potential it flies away on you if you don't approach it from the propper
>angle. All that in a wellgrounded and ESD handling lab.
>
>Cheers,
>Magnus
>
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