VK2DI (Mark)First experience soldering SMDs, my new VK3IL pressure paddle. Geez you need a frightening amount of heat from the heat gun to melt that solder paste! 😬
Robin Davies@vk2di Do you think the frying pan was wicking the heat away? I would probably have just used a soldering iron and 0.5mm solder on those parts - there don’t seem to be any difficult components.
@g7vkq well it was either the pan or I melt my bench mat! I don’t think it was wicking away the heat from the pads because the gun was directly above them. Yes, the soldering iron was viable for this board but I did want to get some experience with the paste/heat gun technique.
@vk2di I can sympathise about trying different techniques out! I have a (very small) heat plate to try soldering some QFN parts out (so leadless packages with hidden pad underneath, which are harder to solder with an iron). Hot air always seems more challenging to me - getting the temperature and airflow rate right seems more of a challenge 😳. Was it lead free paste?