Now that my pan is ready, it is time to do this. First I needed a board. I got one of my designs prototyped by Batch PCB who are cheap and did a good job but I had to wait about six weeks which is OK for hobbyists but I wouldn’t want to be in a hurry.

This solder paste stuff is pretty toxic. Perhaps I’m going overboard here but I thought some rubber gloves would be a good idea.


To apply the paste, I just squirted it on the board. It kinda went everywhere at first until I got the hang of it. Next time I’ll get a smaller tube and perhaps a smaller nozzle. I fixed it up as best I could using a toothpick and cotton tips. It took quite a lot longer and was much more messy than I anticipated.


Next comes the pick-and-place. I got most of my parts from Digi-key who send them out as “Cut tape” which is pretty convenient, you just peel the backing off the tape until you get the quantity of parts you need and the rest are left still attached to the tape so you don’t lose them in the carpet. I positioned the parts with tweezers since most of them are incredibly teeny.

My board includes both surface-mount and through-hole components. I just placed the SMT stuff at this stage because I need the back of the board to be flat for heat transfer.

Now for the fun bit. I put the loaded board onto the pan cold. Then I increased temperature to around 100°C. I left it at that heat for a minute to get everything nice and warm. Then I cranked up the heat to maximum (in my case, 175°) until the solder melted. It was magic to watch. Everything just blobbed into place. Even components which were not exactly positioned right pulled themselves into line.

After a slow cool-down over 5 minutes, I examined the board. Everything looks good to my eye except for some pretty major bridging between the pins of my ARM chip. I’ll leave dealing with these to part 3.

In the end though, I’m pretty pleased with the result. Not bad for my first try!