Raspberry Pi Cuts Product Returns By 50% By Changing Up Its Pin Soldering (arstechnica.com) 13
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Raspberry Pi boards have a combination of surface-mount devices (SMDs) and through-hole bits. SMDs allow for far more tiny chips, resistors, and other bits to be attached to boards by their tiny pins, flat contacts, solder balls, or other connections. For those things that are bigger, or subject to rough forces like clumsy human hands, through-hole soldering is still required, with leads poked through a connective hole and solder applied to connect and join them securely. The Raspberry Pi board has a 40-pin GPIO header on it that needs through-hole soldering, along with bits like the Ethernet and USB ports. These require robust solder joints, which can't be done the same way as with SMT (surface-mount technology) tools. "In the early days of Raspberry Pi, these parts were inserted by hand, and later by robotic placement," writes Roger Thornton, director of applications for Raspberry Pi, in a blog post. The boards then had to go through a follow-up wave soldering step.
Now Pi boards have their tiny bits and bigger pieces soldered at the same time through an intrusive reflow soldering process undertaken with Raspberry Pi's UK manufacturing partner, Sony. After adjusting component placement, the solder stencil, and the connectors, the board makers could then place and secure all their components in the same stage. Intrusive reflow soldering this way involves putting solder paste on both the pads for SMD bits and into the through-hole pins. The through-hole parts are pushed onto the paste, and the whole board then goes into a reflow oven, where the solder paste melts, the connectors fall in more fully, and joints are formed for all the SMD and through-hole parts at once. You can watch the process up close in this mesmerizing video from Surface Mount Process.
Intrusive reflow soldering is not a brand-new process, but what it did for the Raspberry Pi is notable, according to Thornton. The company saw "a massive 50% reduction in product returns," and it sped up production by 15 percent by eliminating the break between the two soldering stages. By removing the distinct soldering bath from its production line, the company also reduced its carbon dioxide output by 43 tonnes per year (or 47.4 US tons).
Now Pi boards have their tiny bits and bigger pieces soldered at the same time through an intrusive reflow soldering process undertaken with Raspberry Pi's UK manufacturing partner, Sony. After adjusting component placement, the solder stencil, and the connectors, the board makers could then place and secure all their components in the same stage. Intrusive reflow soldering this way involves putting solder paste on both the pads for SMD bits and into the through-hole pins. The through-hole parts are pushed onto the paste, and the whole board then goes into a reflow oven, where the solder paste melts, the connectors fall in more fully, and joints are formed for all the SMD and through-hole parts at once. You can watch the process up close in this mesmerizing video from Surface Mount Process.
Intrusive reflow soldering is not a brand-new process, but what it did for the Raspberry Pi is notable, according to Thornton. The company saw "a massive 50% reduction in product returns," and it sped up production by 15 percent by eliminating the break between the two soldering stages. By removing the distinct soldering bath from its production line, the company also reduced its carbon dioxide output by 43 tonnes per year (or 47.4 US tons).
I assume the writer has never soldered anything. (Score:3, Insightful)
For those things that are bigger, or subject to rough forces like clumsy human hands, through-hole soldering is still required, with leads poked through a connective hole and solder applied to connect and join them securely.
It doesn't matter how big the joint is, you never use solder for structural reasons, especially for connectors. Solder is exceptionally poor when it comes to metal fatigue; hell, sometimes joints fail just from thermal cycling.
Re:I assume the writer has never soldered anything (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I assume the writer has never soldered anything (Score:4, Informative)
you never use solder for structural reasons
The billions of connectors and components in the world that have solder tabs mounted to PCB pads purely for structural purposes may very well disagree with you. Ever seen a PCB mount USB socket and wondered what those little wings were for? and why their data sheets state they have no electrical connection? Solder fundamentally has a structural purpose to go with its electrical one.
Re: (Score:2)
For those things that are bigger, or subject to rough forces like clumsy human hands, through-hole soldering is still required, with leads poked through a connective hole and solder applied to connect and join them securely.
It doesn't matter how big the joint is, you never use solder for structural reasons, especially for connectors. Solder is exceptionally poor when it comes to metal fatigue; hell, sometimes joints fail just from thermal cycling.
Your comment about thermal cycling is valid - but that applies primarily to connections which carry significant current.
Your mention of metal fatigue is true under certain circumstances. It concerns me specifically in this quote: "... the whole board then goes into a reflow oven, where the solder paste melts, the connectors fall in more fully, and joints are formed for all the SMD and through-hole parts at once".
The problem there is the "connectors fall in" bit. That means that there's a bigger-than-normal
Re: (Score:2)
How do you think connectors are being attached to boards? Screws? Tape?
Pretty much every modern device uses solder to attach connectors to a board
Missing video (Score:4, Informative)
"You can watch the process up close in this mesmerizing video from Surface Mount Process." has no video link. It's https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
No, they just know their audience is made up of Slashdot ACs and use accordingly complex words.
Amateurs figure out basic manufacturing ... (Score:1, Troll)
The RP "designers" are really the most incompetent fucks, that just barely can make things work. Pathetic.
Re: (Score:3)
What the fuck are you talking about? The Pis work just fine and have for over a decade. Making a small change to manufacturing to improve robustness using a relatively newly developed technique in the electronics world (intrusive reflow soldering has really only been a thing the past 5 years) doesn't make someone incompetent, it makes them precisely the opposite.
There is a fuck here though, an ignorant one, a worthless one whose only contribution to society is to ignorantly shit on the works of others. I'm
Wave soldering, Texas Instruments 1980 (Score:1)