With the development of industrial electronic technology, people have increasingly higher requirements for PCB soldering. Traditional manual soldering can no longer meet the post-soldering processing needs of all products. As an efficient and high-quality soldering technology, PCB wave soldering must be mentioned. So what is wave soldering? Let’s introduce it in detail next.
What is wave soldering?
Wave soldering achieves soldering by making the soldering surface of the plug-in board directly contact high-temperature liquid tin through a wave soldering machine. It can solder a large number of through-hole components on the PCB surface simultaneously. The entire process goes through a board feeding conveyor belt, preheating zone, soldering zone, cooling zone, and control system. First, the printed circuit board to be soldered is placed on the board feeding mechanism, then heated in the preheating zone to reach a suitable soldering temperature. Next, the circuit board enters the soldering zone, where the component leads or the soldering ends of the circuit board are soldered by the tin wave generated by the wave soldering machine. Finally, the soldered circuit board is cooled and solidified in the cooling zone to form stable solder joints.
Why use wave soldering technology?
- High efficiency: Compared with traditional manual soldering, this technology uses a continuous tin wave, which can solder multiple pins on the soldering surface of the PCB at the same time, shortening the soldering time and increasing production capacity.
- Stable and high-quality soldering: By adjusting and controlling the wave height and furnace temperature, wave soldering technology can ensure uniform tin deposition on solder joints, reduce cold soldering and 虚焊 (virtual soldering), and lower the defect rate. In addition, wave soldering is suitable for complex PCBs, such as the soldering of ground pins and precision pins, making soldering easier.
- Cost reduction: Fully automated soldering can reduce labor costs and improve production capacity.
How do we control PCB soldering quality?
Although wave soldering has great advantages over traditional manual soldering in the electronic manufacturing industry, we need to pay attention to some issues in actual operations.
- Equipment maintenance: We conduct regular maintenance on wave soldering machines. Although wave soldering machines have the capability of automated and efficient production, if the equipment is not properly maintained, the quality of PCB assembly may decline, increasing the risk of rework and repair.
- Precise control of furnace temperature and soldering parameters: The quality of wave soldering depends on the precise setting of various soldering parameters, including PCB fixtures, soldering temperature, wave height, and feeding speed. Any deviation in these parameters may lead to poor soldering.
- PCB first article debugging: Due to the diversity of PCB materials and components, some components may have unexpected problems during the furnace passing process. We usually conduct first article debugging first, continuously adjusting the PCB fixtures and wave soldering parameter processes to ensure soldering performance.
In short, quality is the core of our work. Through reasonable management, rich processing experience, and technical means, Jin Rongxin continuously improves soldering quality to ensure that we can better serve customers.