Seminar: Science of Soldering© by Jim Smith

Jim Smith

Founder of Electronics Manufacturing Sciences, Inc.

Science of Soldering© will be back soon!

After the success of our first six soldering seminars that attendees rated 5/5, we are excited to announce that expert Jim Smith of Electronics Manufacturing Sciences will return soon. We are working on finding a date… Hold on tight! Email Lucy to save a spot.

PRICE: $895
MAXIMUM PARTICIPANTS: 12

Date and time:

3-day seminar, date to be determined…

9 AM to 5 PM Pacific time

Location:

Online via Zoom

You may not think you need this amazing class — but you’re wrong

This class is essential for every:

• Assembly or repair technician
• Manufacturing engineer or manager
• Quality engineer and manager
• Design engineer and prototype builder
• Supplier manager
• Operations executive
• Purchasing agent

Everyone whose job involves designing, building or evaluating electronics products needs real, practical knowledge of soldering. Technicians certainly need thorough soldering expertise, of course. But even functions like design, management, quality assurance and supplier management that require little or no actual soldering can’t be effective without in-depth soldering knowledge. But much of what the industry believes about soldering is wrong. Changes in components and materials in recent years have been so dramatic that traditional practices don’t work for modern electronics.

Soldering looks simple but is actually a rather complex combination of chemistry, metallurgy and physics. And reliability can’t be determined by inspection. A cosmetically flawed connection generally indicates a reliability problem but beautiful soldering can be unreliable. In fact, many common industry practices yield beautiful solder connections in ways that cause failures.

You may think you know soldering — but you’re wrong

What you know about soldering was developed for reflowing tin plated leads of large through-hole components protected by mechanical heat sinks. Jim Smith says, “That was the technology level when I taught the people writing defense soldering standards at the China Lake Naval Weapons Center Soldering Standards Branch 40 years ago. And those standards became the ‘industry’ standards and training courses followed by every meaningful electronics company today.

“Almost nothing today is like the components and materials from 40 years ago. But the standards and training curriculums are still the same in every aspect that matters. The results are needlessly high failure rates and seriously excessive costs. What I taught 40 years ago doesn’t work today. I created Science of Soldering© to provide the critical new process knowledge not available anywhere else.”

The Science of Soldering© approach is not like any other soldering class. It begins with a hands-on soldering problem. The problem appears simple but everything goes wrong. Solder fails to flow, materials suffer serious heat damage and other issues make the connection unacceptable. A soldering “recipe” is taught and used in troubleshooting the soldering problem. The “recipe” achieves perfect connections every time – and it’s easy! The “recipe” and special techniques for dealing with issues like ground planes and fine lead pitches are then applied to soldering through-hole and surface mount components. The class concludes with techniques for easy removal of components for repair without needing special tools.

The most important soldering defects – internal damage to components – can’t be seen. Focusing solely on the solder joints without knowing how they were achieved is a critical failing of the traditional approach to evaluating soldering performance. Components are very sensitive to overheating and irons are responsible for that overheating. Jim will show how to use irons without getting component temperature much above the melting temperatures of solder.

The results are remarkable. In just two days, Science of Soldering© provides all the knowledge that makes perfect soldering easy, the first time, every time.

What you will learn during the soldering seminar

• That soldering is mostly about chemistry
• 7 easy steps that guarantee perfect soldering
• The workmanship that all customers expect
• Why most of what you’ve been told about soldering is wrong
• A simple technique for ensuring that components never get much above the melting temperature of solder (most component failures are caused by overheating components)
• Why cosmetically “perfect” connections may not be reliable
• Why your company soldering techniques guarantee failure
• How to make a $90 soldering iron perform like an $800 iron
• Why “soldering” tin-plated parts is not actually soldering
• A simple, easy way to work with ground planes
• The fast, simple way to solder fine-pitch surface mount components
• How to replace any component — without damaging the PCB (and without any special equipment)
• The secret to easy lead-free soldering
• Why you can’t inspect-in reliability
• Why flux-cored solder isn’t suited to soldering
• Why the greatest challenges of the lead-free world have almost nothing to do with the solder alloy
• To never trust any lessons from the Internet
• The “industry standards” that are 100% wrong
• And much, much more on how to achieve perfect soldering…

They loved the soldering seminar

William Bruni Jr
Design Engineer, Mitsubishi

“Taking the online soldering seminar with Jim Smith definitely improved my soldering skills. Having basic knowledge of how to solder made it easy for me to get by in my job duties. After taking the seminar, my skills greatly improved. Jim made it easy to pinpoint flaws in my process and helped me refine what I was doing to ensure a better outcome and work product. A small class size and Jim’s extensive knowledge made it a guarantee that each student involved in the seminar got every question answered and consistent results throughout every exercise presented. I would recommend this course to anyone looking to learn more about soldering or brush up on the skills they already possess.”

Yogi Ahuya
Engineering Manager, Advantest

“Jim’s soldering class was very meaningful for me. With 25 years in the PCB industry, I did not have any formal soldering study or training and always felt lacking in my comprehension of this subject. After the class, I had a clearer understanding of the principles, techniques and the language to use when describing the processes of soldering. I recommend this class to every entry level engineer so they start off with the correct information that they can convert into knowledge through experience.”

John Hughes
Electrical Engineer, Infinite Biomedical Technologies

“Jim’s class demystified soldering for me – where once I had a mess of contradictory advice, I now have a scientific framework for exactly which soldering processes work and which don’t, and why they do so. Beyond improving my soldering ability, it’s given me the perspective to design better processes.”

Joseph Olson
President, MicroAutomata Corporation

“After 35+ years working as an Electrical Design Engineer with a diversity of companies from start-ups to industry giants, someone has finally shown me how to solder properly. Dr. Smith’s Science of Soldering course completely demystifies the “art’’ of soldering. I’m baffled how something so critical in electronic assembly is so little understood, at least in my experience. An enormously delightful surprise to learn a straightforward and controllable soldering process that yields consistent, predictable, and reliable soldering results.”

Registration will close three days before the seminar.
Contact Lucy at lucyi@protoexpress.com for more information.

Please, note that each participant will receive:

• All tools including soldering iron (just put them back in the shipping box and return to Jim after class using the provided prepaid label)
• 78-page Science of Soldering© workbook with workmanship criteria
• Circuit boards
• Through-hole and surface mount components and wiring
• Assorted solders
• Fluxes

A CERTIFICATE WILL BE SENT AT THE END OF THE SEMINAR.