- Soldering Quality: Selective wave soldering is generally considered superior to manual soldering in terms of soldering quality. While manual soldering quality has improved with the application of high-quality intelligent soldering irons, there are still factors that are challenging to control. These include the amount of solder at solder joints, control of solder wetting angles, uniformity of solder joints, and requirements for through-hole solder fill rates. Manual soldering still suffers from human error and may struggle to meet high-quality requirements.
- Soldering Efficiency: Traditional manual soldering requires multiple individuals to perform point-to-point soldering on PCBs. In contrast, selective wave soldering adopts a production line-style industrialized batch production mode. Different-sized soldering nozzles can be used for batch soldering, leading to a significant increase in soldering efficiency compared to manual soldering.
- Soldering Flexibility: Selective wave soldering, based on programmable and movable small solder pots and various flexible soldering nozzles, offers flexibility during soldering. It can be programmed to avoid certain fixed screws and reinforcement areas on the B-side of the PCB during soldering to prevent damage caused by contact with high-temperature solder. This flexibility makes it particularly suitable for multi-product, small-batch production, with broad application value in industries such as aerospace and defense.
- High Quality of Selective Wave Soldering: When using selective wave soldering, soldering parameters for each solder joint can be tailored. There is ample process adjustment space to optimize soldering conditions for each solder joint, such as the amount of flux sprayed, soldering time, solder wave height, and wave height adjustment. This results in a significantly reduced error rate and may even achieve zero-defect soldering for through-hole components. Compared to manual soldering, traditional reflow soldering, and traditional wave soldering, the defect rate (DPM) of selective wave soldering is the lowest.
In summary, selective wave soldering offers many advantages over manual soldering, including superior soldering quality, high efficiency, strong flexibility, low error rate, and versatility in soldering various components. It is the preferred choice for replacing manual soldering in the production of high-reliability electronic products’ PCBA soldering.
