65
this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
65 points (100.0% liked)
MICROCONTROLLERS
848 readers
1 users here now
Everything microcontrollers: projects, questions, new releases, etc.
dragontamer's Beginner Guides:
Beginner Series I: What is a Microcontroller?
Beginner Series II: The "Generic" Microcontroller
Beginner Sidenote: Microchip's Signal Chain Design Guide
Beginner Series III: Skills and Complexity Tiers
Beginner Series IV: Deep Dive into Microchip's AVR EA
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
That looks like a real pain in the ass to solder with a 0.35mm pin pitch.
Not something I would try to hand-solder. Not something that feels relevant for me as a hobbyist either, although it's very cool.
Imagine the arduino-clone boards with these... For very small hands!
I'm a few months late, but I actually recommend people try to solder these at home at a hobbyist.
Below a certain size, you rely upon surface tension of the solder to "pull" the components into place. Its a combination of solder-mask (by your PCB-manufacturer) + well calibrated PCB Software + proper heating technique (hotplate and/or oven).
You'll be surprised how "far" lead will pull your components into the correct spot. In fact, the force is so powerful that smaller components can tombstone if one side melts before the other side (ex: cold joint due to more copper pour melts slightly after, causing the "hot" side to YANK the component so hard it "flips up").
VQFN packages are "square" though, so its unlikely for them to tombstone.