Soldering wires to through holes

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Hi I do not work for a board house but a manufacturing faci... - Dec 07, 2011 by mikenil

Using common wire size and through hole diameter, we'd expec... - Dec 09, 2011 by davef

mikenil

#65606

Soldering wires to through holes | 7 December, 2011

Hi I do not work for a board house but a manufacturing facility where we do a considerable amount of soldering wires to through holes. We pretin our through holes on both sides of the PCB prior to reflowing the solder and installing the conductor (which is stripped and tinned). I am looking at removing the pretinning step as a cost savings and receiving PCBs in with the holes already tinned. Our pcbs are usually populated only on one side.

My question is if the stencil has openings for the wire hole/pad positions to take care of the top side and the pcb is run through a wave to get the back side, will there be sufficient solder to meet the J standard for sufficient solder, proper fillet, air pockets, ect? I understand stencil size is a factor in how much paste can be put down and the wave will only put on so much. Thank you in advance for your reply.

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davef

#65615

Soldering wires to through holes | 9 December, 2011

Using common wire size and through hole diameter, we'd expect that the wave solder process would completely fill the through hole and that you wouldn't need to get involved in providing stencil openings, pasting the through hole or reflowing the jumper wire.

The only concern we have in the process you describe is keeping the insulation on the jumper wire out of the molten solder, but that's not a BIG deal using takpak or something like that.

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