And given that we looked at uh Mike's prototype board before, I've got one from our Smartboard Again, you've seen them on the mail bag before, so they're coming back 4 seconds and we have bear circuit board. description value: Five bucks from Neil thank you very much Neil Smart Board Ink So let's rip this sucker open. It'll be another one of their schmart boards I'm not sure what they send in me this time. Tada Let's have a look.

That's it. You can now solder practically any surface mount component quickly, easily, and flawlessly. Oh, it looks like there's actually a chip attached to this one. so we'll uh, get right into that and check it out.

So let's take a look at what Neil has to say here. Dave You were nice enough to talk about us recently in the mailbag. No worries, thanks for sending. You're as entertaining as ever.

We all enjoy watching your videos here at schmart boards perhaps to us. Americans Your voice is reminiscent of Steve Irn the crocodile hunter who was beloved here. What? I've never heard that before I sound like Steve Owen Cy In the mail bag, you discussed one of our Arduino S&T prototyping Shields point with 1.27 mm pitch and had mentioned that he thought our technology was a slight advantage over a regular pie. B Well, yeah, 1.27 is not that difficult to S so it really did not offer a true representation of what we have to offer.

fair enough. So they're having a second suck of the Sev here. Not a problem. I've included one of our prototyping boards for Qfn 88 lead4 mm pitch.

Oh, what an evil piece of work that will be. Yeah, this would be challenging for anyone to sold it by hand. You're not wrong4 mm is about um, as small as it gets in the industry in terms of pin pitch and that would be a real bastard to do on an ordinary Uh board assuming that you can, um assuming that you can still get the solder mask between the individual uh pads on there. anyway.

I Think you will notice that an I will holding place on the board and solder is already on the board in the grooves. All that is needed is some solder flux and a solder in iron tip smaller than4 MIM Because you run, they've included the photo of it. Here you run the Um. this is where the pointed solder iron tip which I find useless for a good majority of stuff.

I Like using the Chisel but here is one use of the fine conical tip. uh, soldering iron which you usually get a standard on a lot of irons. Um, yeah, you can get right down in that. Groove Uh, not sure if I got one that's 4 mm.

I'll have to have a look. Okay, let's have a look at this chip. it's a green arrays Ga32 G8 Never heard of them for in look at this inter internal use only I wonder what is the go there I'm going to have to Google this sucker. Not that it actually matters at all, but I've never heard of green arrays.

Well, what do you know? it's a multicore processor I've never heard of these things. This Ga32 is a 3 I believe a 32 core, uh, lowow processor. I'm not even sure what technology the core is. It's definitely not arm or anything like that.

It's sort of their own custom thing. I only very briefly looked at it, so check. Check the green Ray website if you want to have a look at more of that. but you can get up to the Ga 144 model has 144 processor CES in there allowing you to do uh, you know, parallel multiprocessing and all that sort of stuff.

So fascinating. Who knew? Anyway, this is supposed to be uh, taking a look at the solder in. So let's take a look at the pin pitch on this thing though. 4 mm, you little bastard man.

what a dog of a little chip to solder. Anyway, this will be a real test of this art. Schmart board. Um, so let's give it and go.

It's sort of. it's supposed to sit in I haven't even got it lined up properly yet, but it does sort of seem to fit in there like that. And they say you can do this without a microscope that's supposed to sit in a group move where you can't easily move it from side to side And it seems to do that. Look at that.

that is an absolute dog .4. mm. You know you need the solder to Reflow under the pins on here and up. All right.

let's give it a go here. I'm going to use my Um Electral Lube uh flux pen here so we're going to put some flux under this sucker and uh, then Aline it up All right. We seem to be lined up on all four four sides here. I Hope dab some more flux on there, hold this in place.

just get a bit more down in there so we've got some on the chip. The pins of the chip as well really does sit into the grooves in there and they're probably riding that. You don't need a microscope for that although uh I would C ly um want to double check that with a uh good microscope first before I solded it but you. But once it's in place, of course once it's aligned, then it, um, it really doesn't seem to move.

I have my uh finest conical tip here I Haven't used it before because uh, not for my heo. um Fx8. it's a little tiny conical tip. Um, this is rather hard to do when you're on camera like like this cuz I've got to stand up doing this from behind and from behind the camera with arms extended so let's and I can barely get my eye in the correct orientation.

Oh there we go. There we go. Oh yeah, sorry folks, this is me trying to look at the camera instead of the board and Reflow this thing. So this is not not the best example but I can see how it's going to work like I can't see that I'm pushing some of the material up in there.

that's oh no. See what my tip has done. It's gone between the solder point so it looks like my tip is not fine enough. Okay, let's try this.

Uh, JBC tip I've got here. Just so happens they supplied me this one. It's a C245 03. Oh, it's a very tiny fine point conical tip and if we have a look at their uh range of conical tips here, you'll see it's the smallest at 0.3 mm smallest one they make, so it should be ideal.

Um, if we can't uh, do it with this then I don't think we're going to be able to do it with anything. All right. I've got this set to 300. There it is.

Let's give that a go. Well, as it turns out, you really do have to do this uh, under a microscope at least for the first couple of times to get a feel for what's actually happening. Uh, there on the PIN and I've had to set up my uh camera here in the vertical uh, reverse tripod uh configuration that you've seen in a previous video to look directly down onto the chip and you can see the solder melt and then drag along. but you certainly must have the correct size.

Tip: If it's too big, you're going to, uh, get into the Fr4 and if you apply too much pressure, you're going to rip all that Fr4 off instead of uh, getting into the solder Groove there and dragging that solder along. So there you go. If I can do the entire length like that, you should have just the right amount of solder to Reflow that pin that seems to be doing the business I'll have to inspect this under the uh microscope of course I Don't think this is something you can do without inspection I Really do think that you need, um, inspection gear to go along with this. You can't just do it willy-nilly and then hope that it's going to work now.

I Won't know until I View this on a high definition screen, but you can probably see that those joints aren't really done there. There's one or two that maybe look like they've caught onto that and Reflow that. Pad But in general, um, no. I Think we haven't done the business there.

so let me let me try another side. I'm going to the alignment was slightly off on that side, so the alignment on the other side here looks a lot better. So let me, uh, apply some, um, fresh flux on that and give the other side a go. All right.

I've used the correct tongue angle and I've applied a large dollop of flux on there. So let's let's give this a go again. look at that. you can see that solder Reflow all the way up to there.

Excellent. So it does exactly as they claim in that you Reflow the solder in that Groove and then it goes Bo all the way up there whether or not it's catching on those pins. Of course, of course, your iron can't get onto the pin. so you're relying on the flux and the molten solder to get under the Um pin on that package and then Reflow that pin as well.

So I won't go through and do them all. Let me, uh, double check that and there it is. Once again, I haven't really got it to Reflow onto the pins. it is a liquid flux.

It should have um flowed under the chip there onto the pin. I Would have expected that to actually work so maybe it's the chip itself I Mean this is not a fresh Uh chip it's been in uh Transit on, come in Seal packages I've mentioned this on previous blogs so maybe that's why it's not taking. We've got some corrosion there on the Uh on the pins of the Chip And it's not taking perhaps? that's uh, all I can think of cuz there was quite a reasonable amount of solder there and quite a reasonable amount of flux. and I would have expected that to Reflow but it hasn't.

Bummer. or at least it hasn't right like up on the side of the chip. Maybe it's caught underneath? Ah no, it definitely didn't take on the bottom of the chip because I was just able to lift the chip up then um, off camera so it didn't take it all. So really I don't I don't know what the deal is I'm using the smallest JBC tip possible 0.3 mm.

I'm dragging all of the solder over that pin. You can see it reflowing. Maybe I need to hold it there a bit longer bit. Well, when in doubt, raised the temperature I guess got it set to 350 now and let's drag that in there I Can't believe I can't get it to take.

There is quite a lot of flux on there and it should. You can see the flux. you can see it there. Can't believe it's not.

It's not taking to that pin in there I Think we got a dodgy chip folks. I Really don't like this? We've got one one my best. Ghostbusters impersonation. sorry about that.

Um, it's really quite hard to get this under the X 10 mag here. I'm handholding this, but you can see smack in the center of the image there that, uh, quite a few of those have solded very, very nicely now. I've actually, uh, cleaned all this up so you should be able to so there's no flux residue left on that so you should be able to see those joints perfectly in and yet some of them have just not taken at all. So it you know, this thing seems to do exactly what they claim.

You put your 0.3 mm solder in iron in there and it does Reflow the solder in the little groove it goes all the way over and you put your flux in and it all reflows and there's no solder Bridges and perfect amount of solder and all that sort of stuff, but it still has not reflowed. So I suspect that is probably the Uh chip that we've got. so I don't think it's it's any fire in the Uh schmartboard as such. Otherwise, this actually worked quite a treat once you got the hang of it.

but you really do have to get the um hang of this thing first. It's not something that you can just walk up to and do I think you you really need that inspection gear to check and do a few Uh tests first. and once you got the hang of it, it is very easy and very simple. I Do like it.

Um, no solder Bridges or anything like that. but I'm actually going to now with a bit of practice. I'm going to actually go back to the Hoo conical tip and give it another try on the other side of the chip. All right, so we're back on the uh heo tip here, so let's give it a go.

One thing I Found though: this um side over here is the side that we solded before and now I found that this chip has actually um, raised itself up on this side. so you've really got to, um, apply pressure now I found that I've got to apply pressure on the chip on this side. See, you can see it there and now I'm pushing down and you can see all the flux. just move like that.

so let's no there we go. The Heo is there we go. I think I was just too ham fisted before with the hoo it seems to be yeah I didn't have the right angle I was too hamfisted. You really have to be quite gentle with these things.

otherwise you're going to scrape off the uh Fr4 there in between the in between the grooves. But off, you can't really see the final solder joint until you clean that flux. Quite enjoyable. I Really like this.

It's really is quite neat. No. I Don't think it's taken because you can see that I can still push the chip down there? No. I'm afraid not.

I didn't get a single one of those to take. Look at that bastard. So yeah, yeah. I I Do believe this uh concept can work.

but I think we need a uh, better representation of a um of a fresh Uh chip straight out of the package I think Anyway, that was rather interesting. Now, just out of curiosity. I'm actually going to run over this with just my regular chisel point with some solder on there and uh, see what we get and check it out folks. Ironically, using the uh chisel point, I was able to get in there and perfectly Reflow all but one of those pins.

Not a problem at all. Yeah, there's a little solder Bridge there between a couple of pads there, but no big deal that seemed to have worked much better than getting the Chisel point in there. Maybe I'm not using the the correct uh chisel point, but I am using a.3 mm in a you know on A4 mm pitch uh device which is what they recommend using a smaller chisel point and you know it, It dragged the solder along fine, but it just didn't seem to take like it did did with that drag soldering. So not sure what the deal is.

Um, let's see if uh, Schmartboard can come back with an answer on that cuz maybe I'm uh, just not doing it right or um, but once again I think this uh chip is uh, quite old and the uh pins are oxidized. Of course that solder drag system is the time oned method of uh soldering, um prototype chips. uh like this and it does work but of course it's very Reliant upon. You know the amount of solder and you know your skill in actually doing it, how much you've practiced and things like that.

and especially the um, uh, solder mask between uh pins in there. And if you don't get the solar mask in between pins, well, that can ruin your day, especially on a very fine pitch. one like this. 0.4 mm.

Unbelievable. Okay, well I did have some success there before by raising the Uh temperature. so I've raised it even more. I've got up to 385 using the JBC and let's see if we can.

uh oh, let's see if we can Reflow this. yeah, it's really sizzling of course, so possibly we might get some Reflow on there. I mean I Don't recommend you use this higher temperature. You shouldn't have to on a uh well prepared chip.

and I've got the angle there. I'm probably at 20 angle. I'm quite a shallow angle. It looks like the angle is higher on camera there, but it's not.

It really is quite a shallow, quite a shallow angle. and I'm leaving it longer, slightly longer on the PIN for about a second or more just to let it, just to let that molten blob sort of pick up on the individual pin. And of course, you know which one you've already done because it changes. Uh, changes color there.

Oops did that? Oh, is that sort of sliding out of the groove there? Oh, something. Something went horribly wrong there, folks. Yeah, yeah, look, it just jumped out of the groove. Check it out.

Yep, 385. You don't want to, uh, use 385 de on this thing. It's uh, it's too high. but anyway, Let's uh, see if we get a result on that? Nope.

No One or two maybe there. but no, still didn't do it at uh, 385. Bummer. All right.

Well, let's have another go with the Uh drag soldering technique. and uh, see what happens here and check it out folks. Every single one of those Absolutely perfect. Not a problem because it it helps having this, um, well based, you know, these little grooves, this little well-based um system there.

so there's no Bridges So um, these schmart boards really do work quite well. ironically for drag soldering, um across the chip, like along the pins as well as into the pin using the groove system. I mean I just you know, bang straight across there. just a couple of wipes and and it was, uh, done.

and every single one of them, he's perfect. So I can only presume that there probably just isn't enough uh solder in the Uh grooves on the schmart board to do this particular chip. I You know I think if we had another one brand new Straight Out of the Uh straight out of the moisture absorbing Factory packet, it would, uh, it would take no problems at all. Um, so that's the only reason I can think of is that the Um my drag method with the Chisel point I had a you know, quite a large, relatively large uh ball of solder on there and it, uh, it really just got in there and uh got straight onto the pins perfectly as opposed to using the groove system.

But the groove system did uh work. we uh I did show it. um I was able to get uh pins working in the previous uh clip. so yeah, it's no problem I think it's just a dodgy chip but I really do like this grooove system.

It is possible to really get your um older n tip in there and uh, it really does seem to work quite well and I think um, it was just a poor example with the uh uh oxidization on the pins there cuz that certainly had enough solder and flux to work. so I'm sure it does work as claimed.