Hi,
When soldering driver wires to the pcb, do you put thermal paste on the pcb then put it in place then solder the wire or solder the wire then put solder paste and then put the pcb in place?
Hi,
When soldering driver wires to the pcb, do you put thermal paste on the pcb then put it in place then solder the wire or solder the wire then put solder paste and then put the pcb in place?
You’ll want to have short wires between driver and MCPCB, so no chance to apply thermal paste afterwards.
When possible, I solder the wires to the MCPCB, then apply thermal paste and place the MCPCB. Then I solder to the driver.
Pre-tin the pads on the MCPCB. Then add thermal paste onto the shelf, place the MCPCB on top. Depending on the wire length: Either solder the wires to the pads and then press the MCPCB down. Or if they are not long enough, do it the other way around. Usually this works fine.
Usually, I install the mcpcb completly then solder. I’ve only had issues with Virence E21A mcpcbs, the dielectric layer thermal conductivity is so good that the body sucks all the heat from the iron and it’s impossible to solder when the mcpcb is thermally joined to the body. In this case I desolder the wires on the driver and solder the mcpcb first then instal it and solder the driver. If that’s not possible I place something under the mcpcb to thermally isolate it from the body (such as bits of toothpick).
Same with some of Neven’s (Led4Power) mcpcb’s they too can be a bitch to solder leads on….
Easy solution: More heat and a drop of solder on the tip. I’ve given up being careful with temperature. Takes too much time.
Agreed. :+1:
Not mentioned, but should be a given: also pre-tin everything and use liberal amounts of flux. Cleaning the flux is always better than dealing with whatever went wrong because you didn’t use enough.
I solder the wires on after the mcpcb is in place with thermal paste.
Kind of depends on the power of the soldering iron. I use to use a 30 watt Radioshack iron back in the day.
I had to solder on the led wires before the thermal paste otherwise it was almost impossible after the thermal paste.
I left the wires long and then stuffed the excess down into the driver cavaity once soldered.
A lot of the newer lights seem to be getting smaller and smaller eliminating most of the space in the pill.
There is almost no room for extra wire and soldering the led wires to the mcpcb after everything is in place seems to be the only way.
Thanks guys. I’ll try it without thermal paste.