Getting the grasp of through-hole soldering is hard for these of us tinkering at residence with our irons, spools, flux, and, generally, braids. It is virtually reassuring, then, to be taught that through-hole soldering was additionally a ache for a agency that has made greater than 60 million merchandise with it.

Raspberry Pi boards have a mixture of surface-mount gadgets (SMDs) and through-hole bits. SMDs enable for much extra tiny chips, resistors, and different bits to be hooked up to boards by their tiny pins, flat contacts, solder balls, or different connections. For these issues which can be greater, or topic to tough forces like clumsy human palms, through-hole soldering remains to be required, with leads poked by a connective gap and solder utilized to attach and be a part of them securely.

The Raspberry Pi board has a 40-pin GPIO header on it that wants through-hole soldering, together with bits just like the Ethernet and USB ports. These require strong solder joints, which might’t be accomplished the identical approach as with SMT (surface-mount know-how) instruments. “Within the early days of Raspberry Pi, these elements have been inserted by hand, and later by robotic placement,” writes Roger Thornton, director of functions for Raspberry Pi, in a blog post. The boards then needed to undergo a follow-up wave soldering step.

Now Pi boards have their tiny bits and greater items soldered on the similar time by an intrusive reflow soldering course of undertaken with Raspberry Pi’s UK manufacturing associate, Sony. After adjusting part placement, the solder stencil, and the connectors, the board makers might then place and safe all their parts in the identical stage.