This is not the smallest part – there is a much smaller thermistor below.
Sneezing is not a good idea.
I did my best to take a picture through the eye piece of the
scope. R3 is the same resistor placed ready for me to solder.
It is easy to bump the part out of alignment – small steady motions – sometimes the surface tension of the solder causes ‘tombstone-ing’ where the part stands up on one end.
Once this is all assembled, these will normally be put together by robots – the solder is applied via stencils and then into a infrared oven to melt the solder.
I installed a 0204 thermistor tonight – by far the smallest part
I’ve ever soldered. On the first attempt, the surface tension of
the solder just picked it up and stuck it to the soldering iron. I
re-positioned it and then carefully laid a tiny corner of a
circuit board on to to hold it in place. I don’t really need one
this small, except it is the only one that is thin enough to match
the FETs I’m using. It is the speck in the red circle
– (not the best picture)
Small enough that just breathing moves it around – I had to be
careful to breath slowly..
Any smaller and it would be dust!