{"id":1212,"date":"2023-05-13T14:35:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-13T14:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/geekblog.febo.com\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2023-05-13T14:35:41","modified_gmt":"2023-05-13T14:35:41","slug":"hybrid-pcb-assembly-technique","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.febo.com\/?p=1212","title":{"rendered":"Hybrid PCB Assembly Technique"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m working on a project that might become a TAPR<\/a> product Real Soon Now.  While almost all its parts are very ordinary, one is unique (and can be expensive) — a u-blox<\/a> GNSS (global navigation satellite system) module.  These come in at least three form factors.  Two of them can be hand soldered with care, but most interesting to me are the ZED-F9T<\/a> and ZED-F9P<\/a> dual-frequency high performance modules, and the ZED footprint poses some challenges.\"u-blox<\/a>You can see from the picture that unlike some other u-blox devices, the pads aren’t accessible from the side — you can’t get to them with a soldering iron, and the only option is to reflow solder<\/a> them.<\/p>\n

DIY surface mount assembly has become relatively common, and isn’t as difficult as many people think.  Solder paste is spread onto the board’s pads using a metal stencil and a squeegee, then the parts are placed on the pads, and finally the whole board is heated to melt the paste into liquid solder.  Here’s an old but very good tutorial on SMD soldering using a stencil<\/a> from the good folks at SparkFun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Placing all those tiny parts by hand can be really tedious.  PCB assembly houses like JLCPCB<\/a> now offer automated surface mount assembly services for incredibly low prices.  JLCPCB stocks all the parts my project uses, except the u-blox module.[1]<\/sup><\/a>Actually, they can source those too, but there are drawbacks, but that’s a story for a different post.<\/span><\/span>