Comparison of laser soldering with other soldering processes

In today's precision electronics industry, automated production of electronic components, generally will be used in the soldering process has a soldering iron welding, reflow soldering, wave soldering and laser soldering these four. The following Songsheng photoelectric will talk about the comparison of these four processes.

Soldering iron soldering process principle characteristics

Using a soldering iron as a heating tool, the solder will be melted on the soldered object. The melting point of the solder is generally lower than the melting point of the object to be soldered, so in the heating process, the solder will melt before the object to be soldered, thus forming a molten pool. Conventional soldering processes are often used to join simple metal and plastic parts due to their relative simplicity.

Solder is a relatively low melting point solder that melts at around 300 °C, making it easy to join the parts being soldered. Soldering iron soldering is the use of heated soldering iron (also known as hot air gun, hot air welder) on the workpiece to be soldered parts of the heating and melting, and with the drive of the wire tapping to achieve the electronic components of the welding or soldering.

The disadvantage is the need for regular replacement of the soldering iron tip and welding accuracy is relatively low, due to the size of the soldering iron and operating skills of the limitations, it is difficult to achieve precise welding position.

Reflow Soldering Process Principle Characteristics

Reflow soldering technology; the components on the various boards and cards used within our computers are soldered to the circuit boards by this process. There is a heating circuit inside this equipment that heats the air or nitrogen to a sufficiently high temperature and then blows it onto the circuit boards that have been fitted with the components, allowing the solder on both sides of the components to melt and bond with the motherboard. The advantage of this process is that the temperature is easy to control, the soldering process can also avoid oxidation, manufacturing costs are also easier to control.

Selective wave soldering process principle characteristics

The wave soldering process involves applying flux, then preheating the board/activating the flux, and then soldering with a soldering nozzle. Traditional manual soldering requires a number of people and uses point-to-point soldering for each point on the board. Selective soldering is an assembly line type industrialised mass production mode, different sizes of soldering nozzles can be used to drag the soldering batch welding, usually welding efficiency than manual welding can be increased by tens of times (depending on the specific circuit board design).

The disadvantages are only applicable to through-hole design of the PCB assembly process, SMT, CABLE WIRES is not applicable, so the scope of application is more limited, due to the need to use flux when welding and produce slag, the later production costs are higher.

Advantages of choosing laser soldering

Laser soldering uses a laser as a heating source to heat the solder joints or the connection pads of the leadless devices, and then conducts heat to the substrate through the specialised solder such as laser solder paste, solder wire, solder rings, solder balls, or special solder sheets. When the temperature reaches the melting point temperature of the solder, the solder melts to form the solder joints.

Songsun Optoelectronics desktop temperature feedback laser soldering system consists of a multi-axis robot, a temperature feedback system, a CCD coaxial positioning system and a semiconductor laser system. The temperature feedback and CCD coaxial positioning functions of the system effectively ensure constant temperature soldering of soldering joints, which effectively ensures the precise alignment of precision components and guarantees an effective yield in mass production.

Multi-layered electrical mounting components for precision electronic substrates. Rapid technological advances have been facilitated by the inability to apply conventional soldering processes. Existing soldering iron processes are unable to process precision parts, which can ultimately only be completed by laser welding. The biggest advantage of laser welding is the non-contact welding. As no contact with the substrate or electronic components is required.

For laser soldering, selective wave soldering, reflow soldering can do laser soldering can also do, but selective wave soldering, reflow soldering will produce pollution, laser soldering will not, but reflow soldering to do large quantities of plane is easier, laser soldering is the choice of soldering, on the fine, thin, pad mask, elevation of the soldering is very good, is not a substitute for reflow soldering, most of the precision electronics industry, such as: bluetooth headset, semiconductor, Optical modules, communications, automotive electronics, fuse, wire class electronic devices, CCM modules, 3C, FPC/PCB/FCP boards, etc. Use of laser soldering machine is more advantageous.

In summary, laser soldering has become a widely used welding technology in industrial production due to its high precision, low temperature and time-saving advantages.