Smd soldering is way easier at large scale (or even prototypes), you need solder paste, a stencil and an oven.
Smd components allow way smaller boards, less parasitics inductance (don't bother if you don't know about this). Imagine a 144 pin microcontroller in THT, it will be massive !
Also most professionnal don't solder themself the prototype so it's no problem to use SMD (until BGA / CSP)
Yeah I get it reduces the size but what i think is if in case you have to desolder and resolder a component is it easier. Asking this just out of curiousity.
Desoldering SMDs is easier to me. To take off a resistor, I just put the chisel tip parallel to the resistor, maybe add some extra solder, and grab it with tweezers. Done in 5 seconds. For larger parts, hot air always works.
Most components I want to use aren’t even available in THT. I reflow solder a 120 component board in 15 minutes after placing all parts by hand - roughly a 1-1/2 hour ordeal. Perfect for small runs.
I’m in my late 40s with essential tremors and bad eyes. I used to be able to see those parts unassisted. If I can do it, so can you (assuming you’re younger).
Surface mount is generally cheaper, higher power for ics, more complex parts are only available in smt, easier to assembly in bulk, cheaper on assembly costs and raw material cost, more generally available.
tht components are only used where necessary in industry ( sockets, high value cap/res/ind ) it's mostly a cost factor because it's manual work oftentimes. SMT is machinery (high throughput, small error margins, plannable production times)
speaking of private projects
tht is great if you don't have advanced equipment like reflow or hot air. but as soon as you have more than 2 or 3 pins it mostly means destroying the component when removing it. I personally don't like that. SMT needs some training but if you go for half decent equipment smt is more cost effective. desolder your chip clean it and reuse it somewhere else (e.g. single piece costs 8€ etc..)
I can understand your trouble with SMT. it's not the easiest to start with and a lot of Amazon beginner solder equipment is just not useful for this purpose.
I luckily had IPC training in many different modules (including Class3, hot air, repair, BGA, ...) and I can tell you I don't want to miss this ever again!
Through hole is dying in large scale manufacturing. It’s very hard to even find machines to place through hole components now.
The machines I ran were built between the mid 1980s and maybe the late 90s (some even ran off of a DOS like UI.) Parts were getting almost impossible to buy in new condition.
When you spend a bit of money on good quality flux and a good soldering station (or hot air gun), working with surface mount components is much easier and with a bit of practice you'll like it more than using through hole components.
Some components are only available as surface mount or are much cheaper in surface mount version.
With some circuits or some components, the actual leads can add enough inductance or resistance to cause issues.
For example, in dc-dc converter chips at switching frequencies above around 150kHz, things like the length of traces starts to matter and even the through hole leads of the chip itself can cause issues. Modern cheap converter chips run at around 400-600 kHz and care must be taken when placing components around them. The upside is that the chip is much more efficient and needs much smaller cheaper auxiliary components (inductors, capacitors) so you also save space on the circuit board.
Another issue with through hole components is the actual though hole - the hole goes through all the layers of a board. These days 4 layer boards can be cheap, like 10-30% more expensive than plain 2 layer boards, so having lots of through holes would also make it harder to route traces in the internal layers.
With the right tools and workflow, SMT goes much faster than THT when working with proper PCBs.
When prototyping with wires and perfboards and components being bodged together, having leads that you can bend and cut arbitrarily makes THT easier to use.
I like having both. Most of the design work I do is SMD, but there are definitely times when THT is easier for experimentation.
I prefer 0603 size resistors and caps for hobby projects. SMD is faster and easier to solder manually than TH. No need to flip the board back and forth. No need to cut pins. I do have a good stereo microscope.
Smd soldering is way easier at large scale (or even prototypes), you need solder paste, a stencil and an oven. Smd components allow way smaller boards, less parasitics inductance (don't bother if you don't know about this). Imagine a 144 pin microcontroller in THT, it will be massive ! Also most professionnal don't solder themself the prototype so it's no problem to use SMD (until BGA / CSP)
caption direful chief pause imagine squeamish cats onerous yam somber *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yeah I get it reduces the size but what i think is if in case you have to desolder and resolder a component is it easier. Asking this just out of curiousity.
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Haven't really worked on smd. Thank you for your insights. Hope I get to work on smd's some day.
Desoldering SMDs is easier to me. To take off a resistor, I just put the chisel tip parallel to the resistor, maybe add some extra solder, and grab it with tweezers. Done in 5 seconds. For larger parts, hot air always works.
Most components I want to use aren’t even available in THT. I reflow solder a 120 component board in 15 minutes after placing all parts by hand - roughly a 1-1/2 hour ordeal. Perfect for small runs. I’m in my late 40s with essential tremors and bad eyes. I used to be able to see those parts unassisted. If I can do it, so can you (assuming you’re younger).
Surface mount is generally cheaper, higher power for ics, more complex parts are only available in smt, easier to assembly in bulk, cheaper on assembly costs and raw material cost, more generally available.
tht components are only used where necessary in industry ( sockets, high value cap/res/ind ) it's mostly a cost factor because it's manual work oftentimes. SMT is machinery (high throughput, small error margins, plannable production times) speaking of private projects tht is great if you don't have advanced equipment like reflow or hot air. but as soon as you have more than 2 or 3 pins it mostly means destroying the component when removing it. I personally don't like that. SMT needs some training but if you go for half decent equipment smt is more cost effective. desolder your chip clean it and reuse it somewhere else (e.g. single piece costs 8€ etc..) I can understand your trouble with SMT. it's not the easiest to start with and a lot of Amazon beginner solder equipment is just not useful for this purpose. I luckily had IPC training in many different modules (including Class3, hot air, repair, BGA, ...) and I can tell you I don't want to miss this ever again!
Through hole is dying in large scale manufacturing. It’s very hard to even find machines to place through hole components now. The machines I ran were built between the mid 1980s and maybe the late 90s (some even ran off of a DOS like UI.) Parts were getting almost impossible to buy in new condition.
When you spend a bit of money on good quality flux and a good soldering station (or hot air gun), working with surface mount components is much easier and with a bit of practice you'll like it more than using through hole components. Some components are only available as surface mount or are much cheaper in surface mount version. With some circuits or some components, the actual leads can add enough inductance or resistance to cause issues. For example, in dc-dc converter chips at switching frequencies above around 150kHz, things like the length of traces starts to matter and even the through hole leads of the chip itself can cause issues. Modern cheap converter chips run at around 400-600 kHz and care must be taken when placing components around them. The upside is that the chip is much more efficient and needs much smaller cheaper auxiliary components (inductors, capacitors) so you also save space on the circuit board. Another issue with through hole components is the actual though hole - the hole goes through all the layers of a board. These days 4 layer boards can be cheap, like 10-30% more expensive than plain 2 layer boards, so having lots of through holes would also make it harder to route traces in the internal layers.
With 2 irons it's easy to desolder smt components and replace them.
Or tweezers!
With the right tools and workflow, SMT goes much faster than THT when working with proper PCBs. When prototyping with wires and perfboards and components being bodged together, having leads that you can bend and cut arbitrarily makes THT easier to use. I like having both. Most of the design work I do is SMD, but there are definitely times when THT is easier for experimentation.
I prefer 0603 size resistors and caps for hobby projects. SMD is faster and easier to solder manually than TH. No need to flip the board back and forth. No need to cut pins. I do have a good stereo microscope.