In Depth Guide to Surface Mount Soldering

Super Small Component

Surface mount components are really neat, they can help reduce the size of a project very easily. The problem with working with surface mount components is that most standard soldering irons have a very difficult time handling these super small components. Some surface mount components even have the pads on the bottom of the pieces, which makes regular soldering virtually impossible. There are many different methods to solder these components, one of them is to solder them like regular components, then use a de-soldering braid to eliminate the shorts. This method can work but it takes a lot of time and wastes a lot of solder. Another way to solder surface mount components is called the Hot Plate method, which uses a hot plate, a pulse width regulator, and a AC control unit.

Doctek, from Instructables.com, wrote up a fantastic guide to creating a hot plate soldering station, using it correctly, and properlly desiging circuts that incorperate surface mount components. Check it out here.