You don't need to worry so much about burning the board. Almost every clad board that I know is made of some form of phenolic resin: G-9 glass phenolics and such. Here is a link to data information on working with phenolics. The company that I work for deals with phenolics on a daily basis. It is not uncommon for phenolic to smoke when machining at high speeds, especially when drilling or machining glass or epoxy resin phenolics. http://www.norva.com/Materials/Phenolic/Phenolicselector.htm -----Original Message----- From: pic microcontroller discussion list [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU] On Behalf Of Jai Dhar Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 9:05 PM To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Subject: Re: [OT]: Drilling and soldering Well, I'm using a good quality Dremel Multipro tool with the drill stand, but not on the highest speed setting or anything. I'm on the 3rd setting out of 10, and the reason I do'nt go higher is because smoke is coming out of the board when I drill a hole, heh. I'm afraid if I go faster, it will light the board on fire or melt it :-) But I will give it a try just to see. As for the soldering, it seems that the best way to do it is plan a bit ahead, or place vias near it. It's a shame because it took so much work to do my current board, I don't want to do it again :-( I guess you learn these things along the way.... Quoting Picdude : > Sounds like a problem with the brand or PCB you're using, or perhaps a bad > (dull) drill bit...? I have not had this problem, using harbor-freight drill > > bits, and a drill press operating at about 1000 rpm. > > Many techniques to solder w/o plated-thru holes.... > - Suspend part about 1/4" (more or less depending on part) above board so you > > have access to solder the top. Works well for me, except I question the > mechanical hold on the part if I'm going to use the board in a vehicle, etc. > - Tin the leads on the part, solder same as above, then slowly push the part > > down while keeping the lead heated, and sort of "squish" the solder on. I've > > had poor results with this. > - Design the board so that the pads are mostly on the bottom, except where > you > know you have access to the top (like vertically-mounted axial caps, etc). I > > always do this nowadays and it definitely solves a lot of problems. > - Add additional vias just outside of the component pads and component > dimensions for the connection. > > > Cheers, > -Neil. > > > > On Thursday 24 April 2003 19:20, Jai Dhar wrote: > > Hello all, > > > > I just finished my first double sided board using UV to transfer the > > tracks. The board turned out really well, except I'm having a problem > while > > drilling. When drilling holes that don't have a track attached (ie: just a > > pad), the pad lifts off the board and goes onto the drill bit? It really > > isn't a HUGE problem since there is no track attached, but I do lose a > > soldering point... which brings me to my next question. > > > > Are there any techniques used for soldering a component on both sides of > > the board? What I mean is that it's easy to solder the bottom side of the > > board since it's just the component leads that stick out... but on the top > > side, I have to sorta squeeze the iron between the board and the component > > - this can easily burn the component, and it looks kind of messy since the > > component isn't all the way down against the board. But I can't think of > > any other way to solder it to the top tracks??? I hope I have explained > > myself clearly, > > > > Thank you, > > > > Jai > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------- > > This mail sent through www.mywaterloo.ca > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. > ---------------------------------------- This mail sent through www.mywaterloo.ca -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.