In the mid-1980s, the electronics industry began a nearly unanimous move towards using surface-mount technology (SMT), Figure 1. This article assumes you have an existing PCB or other suitable board ...

If you are lucky enough to encounter a piece of homebrew electronics from the 1950s, the chances are that under the covers the components will be assembled on solder tags, each component with long ...

For most of us, soldering electronics means soldering on “through hole components,” that are large and easy to handle. However, when machines build components, they use “surface mount components,” ...

Modding today's hardware often means moving or removing tiny surface mount components, and using a standard soldering iron feels about as effective as using a hammer to kill a fly. If buying an ...

Drag soldering works exactly as its name implies, by dragging a bead of solder across fine-pitch pins you can quickly solder an entire row. The method relies on clean joints, so liquid solder flux is ...

At some stage you will have to work with surface-mount devices (SMDs) and solder them by hand. You can wait until you are forced to learn, or you can leap into the fray with gusto and abandon. At some ...