Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

BGAs are nearly impossible to hand solder. You can theoretically do it by flipping them upside down and soldering individual wires to each ball, but this is very difficult, unreliable, and harms signal integrity. It's completely unsuitable for production and even for prototyping it's basically never done.

Through hole components are commonly hand placed or hand soldered because there are only a few on the board, not enough to make machine placement/wave soldering cost effective. Additionally, some through hole components have shapes that make machine placement difficult.




Yeah that comment jumped out at me as sketchy the second I saw that...

"15 years" in operations and isn't even aware of this basic fact.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: