> My next project will take into the realms of the barely visible: 0402's are huge compared to 01005's.
http://www.delorie.com/pcb/smd-challenge/ http://www.delorie.com/pcb/smd-challenge/insanity_II.jpg > The majority of parts will be populated by a third party in a reflow > oven. I guess, they are ok with the small size footprint. They even told > me not to choose large footprints as this would encourage tomb stoning. > However, I will need to manually rework some of the more sensitive > resistors. Would that be possible with the small size footprints? There are three "standard" 0402 sizes - least copper, normal, and most copper. Non-standard sizes may be significantly bigger to allow for manual soldering. Look for the INDC1005[LNM] footprints in ~geda. Choose the N size unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, especially with third-party automated paste/place/soldering. As for rework, get a hoof tip for your iron that's big enough to touch both ends of the top of the 0402 at the same time. The part should just stick to the iron and you can lift it off. Alternately, invest in something like the Metcal Talon, which has two tips to act like tweezers. Metcal also has a "C" shaped tip that can heat both pads at the same time. For the really small parts, heating one end is enough as conduction heats the other end. Hard on the part, but if you're going to toss it anyway... You'll want needle-end tweezers too. And a magnifying visor. In any case, having a bigger pad will not really help you rework these. They're too small for the pad to really help; you'll always be working from the top or sides of the part. Heating both ends at the same time is the key to reworking these small parts. Even with bigger pads, you can control tombstoning (somewhat) by controlling your paste mask. PCB doesn't have an editable paste mask, so you'll end up writing a script to go through one .pcb and twiddle the pads to make a second .pcb from which you'll export the paste mask. _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list geda-user@moria.seul.org http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user