SMT/Thru-Hole/Component ID

C

CBR

I Show Old Ladies My Dick Wrappers
Joined
Jun 9, 2004
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I know how to solder, but I've never heard this lingo before. What are they and how do I do it?

I'd imagine its not all that difficult, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
 
SMT = surface mount. Where things just solder to the surface of the board. Take a look at a motherboard, those are almost all surface mount components. I've never soldered any of this myself, but I know there have been past threads and google searches look informative.

Through hole = When there is a lead going through a hole on the board and it is soldered on the other side. This is probably what you have done before.

I don't know what Component ID means, and a quick glance at google yielded no fruit. Where did you hear about it?
 
I'm looking for a part time job and one of the openings requires knowledge of these types of things.

I ran a few searches through google, but only found listings of companies and machines that do this. I'll look a bit harder.

From your descriptions, I've done the SMT and the Through-Hole.
 
Perhaps it just means that you should be able to identify different components and their values on sight. A call/email/visit to the job offering company could help you figure out for sure what they meant.
 
Yeah, I was kinda thinking that.


Thanks for your help. :)
 
Surface mount soldering is the brain-surgery of the electronics industry. The average SO SMT IC has 50 mil spacing between pins...thats .050 inches. If you have never soldered before, and this job expects you to solder SMT by hand, you're screwed. It took me like 2 months of practice to get the art down, and that was with a 50x scope. Its practically impossible to do by naked eye. Any other SMT questions, drop me a line.
 
Damn, that does sound hard. The job search continues.

Thanks. :)
 
CBR said:
Damn, that does sound hard. The job search continues.

Thanks. :)
Click to expand...

Don't rule the job out just by what people here say. For all you know, they have $100k worth of equipment, which would make your job very easy. I'm just saying that SMT can be quite difficult. Just a heads-up.
 
joecool234 said:
Surface mount soldering is the brain-surgery of the electronics industry. The average SO SMT IC has 50 mil spacing between pins...thats .050 inches. If you have never soldered before, and this job expects you to solder SMT by hand, you're screwed. It took me like 2 months of practice to get the art down, and that was with a 50x scope. Its practically impossible to do by naked eye. Any other SMT questions, drop me a line.
Click to expand...
I soldered a 168-pin LQFP package to a board today at work. The pins are 0.5mm apart, which is something like 19.8 mil.

I wish everything was as easy as 0.5 mil SOIC and PLCC ;)
 
gee said:
I soldered a 168-pin LQFP package to a board today at work. The pins are 0.5mm apart, which is something like 19.8 mil.

I wish everything was as easy as 0.5 mil SOIC and PLCC ;)
Click to expand...

My personal best is a 48-pin LQFP, but the spacing was 12mil. I actually enjoyed that one. They put enough solder on the pins of a flat-pack package so that all you need to do is add heat. No additional solder necessary.
 
Most SMT stuff that is very fine pitch is done on a machine, only rework is done on the larger stuff, it is not cost effective to rework fine pitch...by the time you pay a tech to do it, the machine has fired out 10X the boards one tech has done...I work in the industry...

If the people who want to employ you do not realise this then they are probably not a high output company or are a research firm...We only do fine pitch by hand in the research lab.

MD
 
mattg2k4 said:
Perhaps it just means that you should be able to identify different components and their values on sight.
Click to expand...

Component-ID might also mean silk-screening. Are you interviewing at a company that makes PCBs, or a company that populates them?

.B ekiM
 
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