Component Adhesives and Staking Why Bond a Component Adhesive is used on an assembly for several reasons: to hold a component during a wave soldering operation, to stop a heavy component moving under vibration, to reduce the load on a solder joint, to seal a component against moisture and to…

PCB Dielectric Constant Control: Design, Process, and Quality Notes Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article…

Conformal Coating Inspection and Coverage Why Inspection Is Difficult A coating is transparent or translucent, it follows the geometry of the board and it covers exactly the features that make the board recognisable. Verifying that it is present, of the right thickness and in the right places is therefore harder…

Conformal Coating Application Methods What the Method Decides The coating material provides the protection, but the application method decides whether it is actually where it is needed. A material applied by hand can be thicker in one area and absent in another; a dipping process covers everything including the parts…

SMT Reflow Solder Joint Bend Test: Bending the Board Buyers and engineers often focus on the finished product and forget the production line behind it. In practice, most field failures can be traced back to process decisions made during assembly. The same discipline applies to SMT Reflow Solder Joint Bend…

Laser Soldering for Sensitive Assemblies The Idea Behind Laser Soldering Laser soldering delivers energy to a single joint with a focused beam, so the heat is applied where it is needed and the rest of the assembly stays cool. The advantage is not speed, because the process is usually slower…

PCB Solder Mask Dielectric Strength: How Much Voltage the Mask Holds Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years.…

Hot Bar Soldering and Thermode Bonding What Hot Bar Soldering Is Hot bar soldering uses a heated bar, called a thermode, pressed onto a row of joints to reflow them all at once. It is used where the joints cannot be reached by reflow, such as a flex cable bonded…

Squeegee Selection and Wear What the Squeegee Does The squeegee is the blade that rolls the paste across the stencil and presses it into the apertures. The deposit’s volume and its uniformity depend on how the blade behaves: how it deforms under pressure, how it meets the stencil’s surface and…

SMT Component Tray Packing: Parts in a Tray Modern electronics depend on boards that are assembled correctly the first time. Every product – a phone, a charger, a medical instrument or an industrial controller – relies on thousands of solder joints that must conduct current for years. This article explains…