A Printed circuit board or PCB can consist of through hole as well as SMD circuit components. Assembling a circuit board means soldering all such components on the board according to the circuit schematic. It is very important to have the circuit schematic handy while assembling the circuit board since misplacement or wrong orientation of a single component may severely affect the performance of the circuit. A number of tools are required to assemble a circuit board.
Instructions
1 Assemble all of the components needed to build the circuit based on the circuit schematic.
2 Turn on the soldering iron and set its temperature to 450 Celsius.
3 It is a good practice to start building the circuit with the component having the largest number of leads, such as an electronic chip. Place the chip on the board and align its leads to the corresponding pads using tweezers.
4 Solder the component leads to the pads using soldering iron and solder. Use very small amounts of solder for each lead as any excess may flow to the nearby leads and pads and connect them together.
5 Repeat this process for all of the chips.
6 Solder all SMD components using the same method.
7 To solder through-hole components, first insert the component leads into the corresponding holes and slightly band them on the other side of the board. This will prevent them from falling when you turn the board over for soldering.
8 Turn the board over such that the leads coming out of the board are on the top side.
9 Use the soldering iron and solder to join the leads to the corresponding pads. Do not use too much solder as it may flow over the pad and touch the nearby pad or plane.
10 With tweezers cut off the excess length of component leads over the soldering joint. It is not a good practice to leave these leads too long in length as they may cause shorts in the circuit by touching nearby metal pieces.
11 Solder all through-hole components in the same manner.
