Date   : Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:22:02 +0000
From   : Phil Blundell <philb@...>
Subject: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!

Hi M.,

On Fri, 2006-03-10 at 15:39 +0000, Fragula wrote:
> Now the former (.1") I'm a dab hand at, the micro I could probably
> handle, but how the heck are you putting the CS8900 on? Microscope and
> action-man soldering iron? You got some trick kit? Better eyes than me?

It's a lot easier than it looks, actually.  The drill is basically that
you spray a bit of flux over the pads, sit the chip on top of them,
solder down a couple of pins in the corners to hold it still, then
generously tin the iron and wipe it along the row of pins where they
meet the pads, feeding in a bit more solder as you go.  The joints are
small enough that they heat up more or less immediately by conduction
through the molten solder as the iron goes past.  If you end up with any
bridges between pins, it's pretty easy to get rid of them with
desoldering braid.

Trying to solder individual pins of that kind of size is indeed fairly
tedious.  I remember having to fix a pile of debugging wires to the pins
on a TSOP48 NAND flash (0.5mm pin pitch, which I guess is about the same
as the CS8900) a few months ago, and it wasn't a whole lot of fun.

p.