SMD components are too small for me now

[restorer-john]

I've been resisting the inevitable march of smaller and smaller components and my eyes needing more and more magnification. Rework/reflow or replacement of this size (0.6mmx0.3mm) component is simply too much.



There are even three smaller sizes than this, right down to 0.25mm x 0.125mm.

 

[petehall347]

i prefer the ones in the photo . i can get on with those with my magnifier lamp and reading glasses . i have managed to lose a few of the smaller ones . damn things fly off never to be seen again . then its holding them down waiting for the 1mm bit to obscure it from view .. suppose hot air might be better when i get the hang of it better .

 

[WaynerN]

It will all end up as 1 big chip..........

 

[restorer-john]

Hot air, flux, solder paste and kapton tape, but its the manipulation of the little b#$tards. Seriously, you can't have a glass of wine or two and work on SMD the next day.

That's a 1mm ruler graduation.

 

[petehall347]

i find a nice shot of single malt then get to work on smd stuff , steadies my hands

 

[petehall347]

That's a 1mm ruler graduation.

i was looking at the big one on the left .. still done the other tiny ones . never easy though . good check with dmm afterwards .

 

[nj pheonix]

Yeah, No , I'm out on those. Give me leads or give me death!

 

[dinger]

Might as well. When you look at those 7-8 basic components and the length of the traces connecting them all you're not getting much functionality per noise inducing area as you could on a higher scale chip. It's becoming more futile to resist the march of Moore's law even when it comes to higher purposes than basic computing. When I look inside my NAD C427 Tuner and find a little metal cigarette package tucked in the corner by the antenna inputs it's obvious the whole tuner section is on a single chip. If it didn't work so well I'd feel ripped off. At least they made the box HEAVY.

 

[petehall347]

ic chips still rely on the components around them . just saying

 

[NAD80]

Use a 12X slide magnifier to check surface mount PCBs. Wear bi-focals to see at work.

 

[petehall347]

i have the problem of having to get too close the magnifier and steaming it up with my breath . glad i dont do much smd stuff .. i do however like to check my through hole under magnification . it can be revealing to poor eyes .

 

[slimecity]

Mate, I have enough trouble reading values on through-hole capacitors as it is. I have no idea how you guys can work with these microscopic mice droppings!

 

[petehall347]

Mate, I have enough trouble reading values on through-hole capacitors as it is. I have no idea how you guys can work with these microscopic mice droppings!

not easy at all .its the challenge factor .. it amazes me and my friends too how i do it . friends dont believe it . nor do i .

 

[chazix]

Then there's the seriously multi-layer PCBs. Can't route traces underneath such small components, for sure, so the PCB has maybe 4 or 6 copper layers sandwiched into the age-old 0.0625" overall thickness. All that mass can really suck heat away from teensy little soldering tips, adding to the "fun" of rework.

Nice job getting that component angled in there, @restorer-john - wish all my rework came out that well.

Cheers,

chazix

 

[JP]

A used mantis and resting my hand on something, usually my other hand, while placing with tweezers has worked for me. By the time I get to an age where it'll be a real issue, the work will be done by nanites.

 

[musichal]

Mark Twain wrote about the Mississippi River getting smaller, ie, shorter:

"In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

Perhaps someone can calculate the time when audio gear gets so small that it becomes invisible to the human eye..

 

[savatage1973]

My issue with SMD chips is availability. With enough magnification and patience (and a couple drinks) I can deal with them, but it just seems like they make a "batch" and that's it. Want a replacement--good luck. They are obsolete the minute they are issued and there ain't no more to be had. There are exceptions, of course, but it's not like individual components or even op-amps where you can use "substitutions" if the original part is discontinued.

 

[dshoaf]

The company I work with, Elecraft, is a small ham radio company using Digital Signal Processing engines for much of the goings on inside these days. As a result, all of our contemporary products are loaded end-to-end with surface mount. Each generation of products contain the next smaller generation of SMD devices.

All of us run around with magnifiers on our heads and use lots of light at the work stations. Fortunately, we have hired and trained some younger techs who can do the work far better than us old-school dudes. I let 'em, too.

We also sell full kits where you purchase the radio and stuff the boards with thru-hole, leaded devices. We've been offering the same kits continuously for the past 20 years at that. The kits result in a high performance ham radio _but_ the sustaining engineering to keep the kits going are quickly swamping out any margin in the products. That is, we get daily notices from the component manufacturers that this or that part is becoming No Longer Available.

This started with the chips that went to SMD packaging only. We responded with little adapter boards to adapt the SMD device to the holes where a DIP socket once was installed. We're now encountering it with odd-ball value resistors, diodes and capacitors with unique RF characteristics.

While we're able to offer these old-school, Heathkit-style kits for a while longer, there's the Day of Reconing where they'll no longer be worth carrying because the old-dudes who want to have the build-it-yourself experience will be too old to handle the parts.

The cost to tool up for SMD rework is far higher than that little Weller soldering iron and a roll of 60/40 solder. Forget solder braid or a solder sucker, too. Its a different world.

Cheers,

David

 

[E-Stat]

I enjoyed the roughly five minute segment about soldering by Audio Research during Mikey Fremer's tour. Yes, they hand solder SMD chips! Start at about 8:25.

 

[restorer-john]

Fortunately, we have hired and trained some younger techs who can do the work far better than us old-school dudes. I let 'em, too.

I guess for me, it was the first time I've ever had to almost admit defeat with any electronic repair. I knew it was coming. That particular board has multilayer copper and sinks so much heat, surrounding components fall off, no matter what you do.

I'll have one last shot at it and see what happens as there's nothing to lose- it was written off by the distributor. I've replaced about a dozen components so far and I know it will be OK if I can finish. No-one was able to work on this board and it was an AU$5600 TOTL gaming laptop. Trouble is, once you fix this stuff, someone brings you another.

Anyway, I keep it real with a proper capacitor on my bench, next to my mug of tea!