Hi Ron, For the chips I would recommend to keep the part in place with a tweezer while making the solderjoint with a fine soldertip and a thin solderwire. To my opinion the best manual soldering method for fine-pitch QFP's is described on http://www.metcal.tips/minhoof2.html. In this method you must place a quantity of solder onto the face of a specially formed tip, after which your draw the tip along the row of fluxed leads, virtually "painting" the leads with solder. Best regards, Daan Terstegge Thales Communications Unclassified mail Personal Website: http://www.smtinfo.net >>> [log in to unmask] 11/27/02 10:48pm >>> Can anyone recommend good soldering technique for hand assembly of 20mil pitch devices and 0603, 0402 SMT chips? We are looking at doing some protoype assembly on some fairly dense (and small) pcbs. We were thinking of using solderpaste and one of those portable solder pens with a hot air tip ie. Weller Portasol. Has anyone had success using this technique? Thanks Ron. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ----------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 -----------------------------------------------------