Overheating Destroys Components
When components fail, either at test or in the customer's
hands, the tendency is to blame the component manufacturer. But the manufacturer
is generally not the cause of the failure. Most failures
result from overheating with soldering
irons.
Heat damage from improper use of soldering irons is a serious issue that generally goes unnoticed in today’s electronics manufacturing. By conditioning operators to use a soldering technique designed for connecting wires to lugs of vacuum tube sockets more than 5 decades ago, the most common solder training causes a needlessly high failure rate. We developed a simple scientific heat control technique that prevents thermal damage. The technique is not available anywhere else. (For a more complete technical discussion, please go here.)
In the early days of solid state circuits, there was great concern about heat damage to components during manual soldering. To prevent heat damage, operators were instructed to attach metal clips to the lead next to the component body; as heat flowed up the lead, it would be absorbed by the clip (a “heat sink”) rather than into the component body. As components grew smaller, however, there was no room for the heat sinks and operators were simply told to “solder faster.” That doesn’t seem very reliable to us, so we developed our own technique that absolutely prevents heat damage.
Our technique does not require special equipment (it works perfectly well even with the most inexpensive soldering irons, allowing users to save money on tools). It is just as fast as the traditional soldering technique. In fact, the only differences between our technique and the traditional approach are (1) it prevents heat damage and (2) it saves money on tools, calibration of irons and better reliability.
ESD kills components. But ESD causes far fewer failures than heat damage from soldering irons. So why doesn't heat damage attract more attention?
Anti–static programs require lots of expensive materials. In other words, there's a lot of money to be made by sellers of the anti–static materials. And that means huge advertising budgets.
Heat damage prevention doesn't make money for anyone (except the company that employs the soldering operator). Component manufacturers actually lose money when there's no component damage. (No heat damage means no sale of replacement components.)
So heat damage — the plague of modern electronics — gets virtually no attention.
But the problem is very real. One of our clients reduced warranty claims by 83%by using our technique.
Manual soldering, being less controlled, poses the most serious risk of heat damage. However, wave soldering causes heat damage, too. Sagging of the laminate as the assembly passes over the solder reflects melting of the glass fibers (which, in turn, compromises the insulating properties of the laminate). Larger chip components delaminate (crack) when subjected to excessive heat. These degradations occur in the temperature range at which most plants set their solder baths.
EMS clients avoid heat damage during soldering. Scientific heat control in hand soldering is taught only in Science of Soldering©. Our wave soldering process guidelines prevent heat damage, too. For more information, please use this form or call (01)727–866-6502, extension 21 for more information.