We have been soldering LED boards together for years with no issues. Recently engineering has gone to a new board design and we got the first samples in this week. Because of the improved design and better heat dissipation of the board my team is have great difficulty soldering lead wires and connecting boards in series with wire to the solder pads on the LED boards.
The solder will not stay molten long enough to insert a wire even with the soldering tip still in direct contact with the solder pad. I have tried different temperatures and methods but all have resulted in failed solder joints.
Looking for any advice on methods/ materials to try out.
We are currently using Kester lead free 275 .062 wire at 625 degrees
Best Answer
The easiest way to get the PCB soldered by hand is to heat it up to 50-80°C so that your soldering iron has less heat to provide. The best way, in my experience, to do this is to use a heat plate. There are special heat plates sold for soldering, but basically any that you can reasonably well control would work. Word of advice: because the PCBs you get are not humidity controlled anymore, do not heat the PCB up too much (i.e. going over 100°C) without first drying the PCB at around 50°C for a while. Otherwise your components will go *pop*.