[dorkbotpdx-blabber] SMT soldering and adaptors

[Paul Stoffregen]

Thinking of difficult SMT soldering, I recently received some junk mail 
which turned out to be 2 samples of a little surface mount adaptor from 
a company called Schmartboard.  I was about to toss them when I realized 
they had a chip from Analog Devices, which turned out to be a pretty 
nice opamp (AD8608), so I took another look.

They claim their little boards make soldering even the very fine pitch 
SMT parts easy.  The idea is that the "pads" are slight recessed 
channels that are fairly long and already have the solder in them.  The 
legs of the chip fit into the slight recess, so they can't get 
mis-aligned.  You do have to add flux, but not solder.  You're supposed 
to just push the already installed solder along the pad using the tip of 
your iron.  Because it's a trench, it guides your iron so you can't go 
crooked, and you end up pushing the correct amount of solder onto only 
that 1 pin and can't get a solder bridge because the recessed pads keep 
the chip and your iron aligned properly.

At least that's what they claim.  I was going to just throw them away, 
but I'll bring them to the next meeting and anyone who wants them is 
welcome to take them.  I think you can request this free sample on their 
website too?

I have no affiliation with this company, and honestly at $5 or more for 
each one, I'm not planning to buy much of their stuff, if any.  Years 
ago I invested in fab'ing a bunch of boards with adaptors for almost 
every type of SMT part and I have no problem soldering the normal way.  
They're a little ugly but get the job done.

But if you're wanting to solder wires to fine pitch SMT and can't, maybe 
these could help?