how to solder smd's to wire. what tool?

[buickgnx]

every time i do it i have to much wire or not enough solder. i use flux. im prety much asking what tool u use.

[bustinthejustin]

Uh.... a soldering iron?

[buickgnx]

to hold the smd lol.

[bustinthejustin]

Okay lol just checking... At first I used to put the soldering iron down flat, grab the led with tweezers in one hand and wire in the other, both tinned, and then quicly touch them to the iron. However, Nic0 has a tutorial that shows a better method. You take a piece of bristol board, cardboard, etc. and put a piece of masking tape or soemthing on it, half on half sticking out. Then you just plop your led down on the exposed tape, tin your led and wires, and touch your iron to the wire and led quickly. Here's his tutorial.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V18LednEBZA

[buickgnx]

thanks it makes everything easy

[PspKicks316]

I use my finger.

[Jumbo]

I use my finger.

Thats hard core LOL

Its it so small?

And i use the Nic0 way and it works really good

[RoBot1ks]

I actually bought some masking tape today so i can try that


This is my usual way:
strip negative wire
put that wire in helping hands
put flux on wire
hold negative side out in tweezers
put some solder on my tip
touch the tip to the wire and position the led
then solder the positive

[PhenomenalDesigns]

Dude... I have a tool built for it, I can show you pics if you want

Basically, its a small stand thing, with a needle, which holds the LED down, then that just leaves you to tin either sides, the just touch them both, and then hit them up for about half a second, perfect solder joint

Also, make sure you got thin solder (My solder is around the 40AWG mark, its like hair lol)

May I add, try to use the 0.125 wattage LED's, since they are tiny, like just a drip of resin (or whatever resistors are made from)

[bustinthejustin]

My solder is 0.32" diamater Smallest I could find.

[PhenomenalDesigns]

My solder is 0.32" diamater Smallest I could find.

0.32 inches? DAM!!!! that must be like a centimeter wide LOL

This must be millimeters?

[buickgnx]

can i have a pic of you tool plz and a place to get it? phenomenaldesings

[bustinthejustin]

Oops missed a 0. It's supposed to be 0.032", 0.8mm

[PhenomenalDesigns]

can i have a pic of you tool plz and a place to get it? phenomenaldesings

Sure

Unfortunatly they stoped making them now, and shortly after they stoped making them, they company went bankcrupt, also they are hand made

They look fairly simple to build, just go to your school technology dept and ask if you can build it (if you still go school, also most schools will let you do it free and give you the plexiglass/acrylic)

Here it is, i was installing leds onto the DS dust cover, usually i have the LED just there, but this tool is actually built for doing this (soldering PCBs, but you can use it for the single 0603 led) also the thing next to it is a pack of 0603 leds to compare its size




And here it is zoomed out in focus (the standard Canon 400D Lens hasnt got good macro modes)


That yellow stuff I added myself, as i solder LEDs directly on it, so flux gets left behind and also the fact that the acrylic melts from the soldering iron. The yellow stuff is high temperature tape from deal extreme (up to 300 C), now every once in a while, i just take it off and apply a new one, since the flux hardens over time and makes it hard to position the leds, also i just use some precision tweezers to play them correctly (When i need extra light, this makes it easy to solder 2 0603 leds DIRECTLY together in parrell (so they are back to back) which is pretty much impossible without this

[Alien_X]

That's pretty nice, pretty easy to make too.
If you gave me some dimensions I could probably draw up cad files.