Wave soldering

Wave soldering is used for both through-hole printed circuit assemblies, and surface mount.

In the latter case, the components are glued onto the surface of a printed circuit board (PCB) by placement equipment, before being run through the molten solder wave.

However, there is still significant wave soldering where surface-mount technology (SMT) is not suitable (e.g., large power devices and high pin count connectors), or where simple through-hole technology prevails (certain major appliances).

[1] The Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) has led to an ongoing transition away from 'traditional' leaded solder in modern manufacturing in favor of lead-free alternatives.

The primary objective is to clean the components that are to be soldered, principally any oxide layers that may have formed.

[6] Typically no-clean fluxes are especially sensitive to process conditions, which may make them undesirable in some applications.

Lack of flux Insufficient preheating Poor conductivity Wrong conveyor speed Too thin for current load Undesired bridging between paths Different combinations of tin, lead and other metals are used to create solder.

These fixture combined with analysis software allows the production engineer to establish and then control the wave solder process.

The wave height is typically controlled by increasing or decreasing the pump speed on the machine.