peter green wrote:
> James Newton wrote:
>> Exactly, but has anyone deposited solder or solder paste to form traces and
>> larger pads on such a board? 
>>
> I don't see it working, as soon as solder melts it tends to form up into 
> balls, joining two things that aren't actually touching with solder is 
> actually quite hard unless you absoloutely flood the area with solder.

I've done this very occasionally when working on perfboard.  Using 
solder with no flux core helps.  But you still do have to put it on a 
glob at a time, and it's not neat.  I don't see how it would work well 
for small pitch.  At 0.1" spacing, it's ugly but it works.

Though I don't know - maybe with the very small grid of copper islands 
you're talking about it would work better.

Heating the whole board to 290 C or whatever and keeping it there while 
you work by hand seems... hard.  Even harder on a CNC mill, where you 
usually have the board clamped to a big heat sink, if not vacuumed onto one.
-- 
Timothy J. Weber
http://timothyweber.org
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