Monolith soldering technique

[arvika]

According to this topic: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32026 I create video from soldering monolith. I take the easiest case for beginning - typical MicroSD 4x6 row layout.

I just want to show how do it correctly. I notice that most of engineer do it wrong. There is some few basic tool which will be very helpful:

1. Microscope with enlargement 30x and more
2. Good solder station (Ayoue, PT and other chip Chinese shit is not good station ) with stable temperature like Pace etc.
3. Flux - i use Kingbo RMA 218 (it is cheap, but enough for our purpose)
4. Copper wire
5. Some alcohol - spirit or IPA - of course not to drink but to clean monolith
6. Beer

And the one of most important thing: arrowhead. Everyone use the smallest for monolith. It is wrong assumption. Small one have small heat capacity and freeze to monolith. The big one have big heat capacity and we need half/one second to melt the tin.

Here is video. Sorry for quality but video camera could be better (anyway thanks to aviko for borrow it). When I solder this MicroSD my hands were shaking more than usually - bad day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8hTHckMbJU

[jeremyb]

Yeah, but that's a REALLY easy case, those pads are huge

Interesting conical soldering tip. I came to the same conclusion.
I've never seen viscus no clean flux, I like this.

I either use liquid no clean which is "okay" or Highly Active Acidic flux which works beautify but I think it will give me cancer in 20yrs and repeated use is bad for monolithic traces.
I use only Authentic Hakko soldering gear, agree, Ayoue is crap.
Copper wire, I typically use 40AWG Magnet wire with a polymer coating (melts at 355 Celsius), it has a copper core, not sure if that's what you use. Tinning is a pain, its very strong while being very weak if handled improperly with a tweezer.

I use Flux Off, I think it works better than alcohol.

Any tips for steadying your hand? I place the wire near the end of the tweezer, touch the tweezer to the PCB then slide the iron down the tweezer pushing the wire to the pad.

Other tips:
Be patient, repeated attempts can damage the via or rip traces from the PCB..
Tin wires under a microscope and use an Xacto knife to cut them short so there is little excess wire to cause right angles or short.
Don't use solder wick aggressively, it can tear pads if it cools down.

[Sasha Sheremetov]

I've opened internet and found this video made by professionals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIU6cxIj1XM
Now, I don't know which instruction to follow, totally confused

Apart of trolling, your video is great, especially for those who never tried this because of "complexity", it is MUST LOOK.

[Tawfeek]

very professional . i enjoy it

[HaQue]

I've opened internet and found this video made by professionals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIU6cxIj1XM
Now, I don't know which instruction to follow, totally confused

Apart of trolling, your video is great, especially for those who never tried this because of "complexity", it is MUST LOOK.

If you slow down too much Sasha, a certain someone will start teaching you something

There are a few more things that people need now.. practice, and as Jeremy hinted at: commitment. Try thing, use the info around you as inspiration. Just because you do it differently doesn't mean it is wrong. If it works, then you are fine. just tweak as you go. The first monolith I tried, I actually though I wasn't going to be able to do it. I didn't have a microscope, my solder was too crappy and big, my iron tip too old, damaged and too big.

I still have learnt some things from Arvika's video and will be trying some of them out.

remember to buy some test cases, plenty of cheap monoliths around - don't work on customers devices until you are confident you wont wreck it. Better to have them able to take it elsewhere than your shop being the last place it had a chance!

[Dmitri]

Nice video, you shouldn't be sorry.
Our flash guys solder a bit differently, but it's always interesting to see how the colleagues work :)

[Sasha Sheremetov]

My 5 cents here.
We use different methods and wires for researches, basically thin ones
I personally prefer "parallel" soldering.

[jeremyb]

What is "parallel" soldering? This is pretty basic soldering, what am I missing? Other than your using a lot of of flux and I don't use much flux.. I ordered some of the flux arvika recommended for the sake of trying it out though..

Have you found thin wire that doesn't have a Polyurethane\Polyamide coating and melts at a lower temp?

[jeremyb]

3. Flux - i use Kingbo RMA 218 (it is cheap, but enough for our purpose)

I got the flux and I like it. I don't need to tin the wires now, it's good for manual soldering but unless I'm doing something wrong it's TERRIBLE for hot air work.

[arvika]

Here is another video. Difficulty grows a little, so time of soldering dramatically increase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtndkXaHdN4

PS. I need better camera

[HaQue]

camera looks fine o me, well done! though the soldering tip looks like a baseball bat, you swing it like a Pro!

[jeremyb]

Here is another video. Difficulty grows a little, so time of soldering dramatically increase

That's really impressive, you have some real soldering skills.
That flux you recommended made my soldering method 2-3x faster and more accurate it's amazing, thank you.

[jermy]

i gotta hand it to you , it's very nice and skilled

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Sasha and Others ,
Brothers As We Get The Copper Wire Naked At The Ends And Solder To Monolith .And Many Monoliths Have Pads Close By .Does This Mean We Have To Lift The Wires To 90 Degree To Monolith So That it Does Not Touch Each Other Or We Bare only a Little Bit Of It