“I love this stuff - it has revolutionised my soldering. I cannot solder with traditional solder for toffee. I have been trying for about forty years, and even now it's still a mess. With this stuff I can actually solder and get it right. It is intended for SMD, but it is vastly helpful for through hole, especially when the part is precious and / or the fabricator is as clumsy as a drunk armadillo.
Here is an example of how to use (through hole):
1) Consider tinning the parts using the paste and heat or just applying a little raw paste before putting them together.
2) Put the parts together.
3) Apply the paste onto the joint on and around where you want the solder to go. Providing the parts have solder mask or other solder resistant surface, you do not have to worry too much about putting on excess paste - even bridging pins - more is more. with SMD you can even get away with applying paste along the pads in a brided line(!).
4) apply heat from soldering iron to each pad in turn, holding the iron on until the whole joint goes silver and you can see the solder flowing. You should not need to overheat - this stuff is low temp and melts readily.
5) Check the joint to pin shape for the classic curved to conical shape of a good joint. If it looks too skinny, reapply and reheat. Two or three goes is OK - patience!
6) Use some IPA and a small brush (I use a brass one - *gently*) to carefully remove any excess unheated paste and residual resin from the board. The resin can be messy if you used a lot of paste. The folded edge of a lint free tissue and IPA can be effective here too.
The beauty of this paste is that it is, like all solder, automatically attracted to hot metal spaces in the joint. It will flow into and fill deep into the joint, and away from other areas - genius.
WHY NOT 5 STARS? A larger size syringe of this stuff, similar to the syringes one competitor uses for their product, would make this product perfect. The 70s Airfix cement style tubes do not cope well - they leak resin even when refrigerated, tend to clog during storage and burst when you apply too much pressure when clogged.”
“This is great for a lead free solder. I wish we could buy it in bulk!
The solder flows really well on a solder mask, meaning no accuracy in application is required.
My only qualm is that the nozzle is quite large for SMD work, I might try attaking it with a pencil sharpener...”
“I recently made my first attempts at surface mount soldering, a task I was dreading. This solder paste made the process much easier than I had expected. I used it to solder an SOP-24 and two SOP-16 chips to breakout boards for prototyping. All that was required was to apply a small amount of paste to each pad, then touch each pin with a soldering iron (I used a needle tip bit). I found it wasn't even necessary to be particularly accurate when applying the paste - when it melts, it flows very easily away from the solder mask and into the right spot. Every connection except one worked perfectly first time - the one that didn't was due to a bent pin and not any fault of the Maker Paste.
It's advertised as having a long shelf life, but I can't find any specific details which is somewhat frustrating. Otherwise, highly recommended.”
