Be careful with "fresh"?  I've received brand new solder paste that =20
arrived stale from hobbyist-type sources before, with the flux =20
separated from the solder.  Stirring did not help much, so the flux =20
was obviously stale already.  Apparently not all suppliers keep them =20
refrigerated or even cool.  Temp changes during shipping can cause it =20
to go bad too.

All the solder paste I get in jars from the big companies come =20
ice-packed and shipped overnight, and I've never had a problem with =20
those yet.

FWIW, in my early days of solder pasting (couple years ago), I tried =20
using Chip-Quik repair paste in a small syringe that I got from =20
Digikey and ground shipped.  Worked very well.  It's low cost (as it =20
comes in a small tube), so perhaps try that as a test.  Ship faster to =20
minimize issues.

Cheers,
-Neil.



Quoting Josh Koffman <joshybear@gmail.com>:

> Hi all. Just as an update, I have been experimenting (as I have had
> time), and so far I'm doing fairly well. I had a stencil cut locally
> out of mylar, which works nicely. I'm running the toaster manually as
> I don't have a fancy temperature control yet.
>
> The boards are coming out quite nice. The only thing going a bit weird
> is that I often end up with a sort of ring or halo of solder balls
> around some of my pads. I have read that this could be caused by dried
> out paste, but mine is fresh. Has anyone else ever run across this?
> What did you do to fix it?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Josh
> --
> A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
> completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
> fools.
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>
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> http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist
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