Electronic – Good practice when designing a PCB and stencil

kicadpcb-fabricationsolder-pastestencil

While I generally use nothing smaller that SOIC chips or 0603 passive components, I have to design a PCB with a WSON-14 IC with tiny 0.5mm pin spacing and with an exposed pad.

While I generally use a syringe to apply solder paste I thought that, for such a small beast, I should better order a stencil with the PCBs.

Since this will be the first time I order and use a stencil, I wonder if there is any good practice to ease the alignment of the stencil and the application of the solder paste.

For what it’s worth, I’m using Kicad to design the PCB. The PCB is tiny (0.4"×0.7"), and I consider ordering to a low-cost Chinese factory (~$10 for 10 PCBs, ~$15 for a stencil).

Any advice is welcome.

Best Answer

well for easing the alignment I usually make some two '+'(plus) signs at two sides of the PCB I draw those plus signs as multi-layer in Altium designer so it will be on the stencil too. one more thing is using a transparent stencil so that you can see the other side and If you are making lots of PCBs, it is profitable to buy a stencil than to make one but remember to ask the operator not to cut the PCBs to pieces so that you can put the components all at one try it is a lot faster

another way is that you can also just export your pins as a CAD file and send if for a laser cut on a 0.5mm It will cost you much less.