A circuit board that solders its components on its own

Self-soldering circuit board A circuit board that solders its components on its own

2024-01-02 From Maria Beyer-Fistrich | Translated by AI 2 min Reading Time

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Surface Mount Device (SMD) components that solder themselves onto the circuit board? Yes, it's possible, but is it practical? Engineer Carl Bugeja demonstrates how it works in a video.

The concept of a self-soldering circuit board is not particularly practical at the moment. However, in the future, there might be meaningful applications, such as in the field of recycling.(Picture: https://www.youtube.com/@CarlBugeja https://www.youtube.com/@CarlBugeja) — The concept of a self-soldering circuit board is not particularly practical at the moment. However, in the future, there might be meaningful applications, such as in the field of recycling.
(Picture: https://www.youtube.com/@CarlBugeja https://www.youtube.com/@CarlBugeja)

Surface Mount Devices (SMD) or surface mount components are also interesting for hobbyists. However, soldering them is not as straightforward as with through-hole components. Conventional reflow soldering requires even heating of the circuit board, ideally done with a standard reflow oven.
An alternative is presented by an engineer on YouTube. Carl Bugeja, who claims to enjoy inventing new "electronic things," had a clever idea: a circuit board that heats itself, autonomously soldering the components.
For a self-soldering circuit board, a layer inside a four-layered circuit board is repurposed to serve as an internal heating element or heating coil. Instead of a broad, continuous copper layer, Bugeja designed a long, winding trace covering the entire area of the circuit board. The routing of the thermal trace around vias was a bit tricky, according to Bugeja, but in the end, he succeeded in creating a single trace with a resistance of about 3 ohms.

Using an infrared camera, one can observe that the circuit board heats up uniformly after connecting it to a power supply. The quality of the soldering is said to be similar to that of a reflow oven. After soldering, the heating element is transformed into a ground plane for the circuit by breaking off the connections and soldering a few zero-ohm resistors to short the heating coil to ground. The first board he assembled in this way was able to control the current through the heating coil and the temperature. Bugeja initially performed the first heating manually. With the resulting circuit board, he then produced additional boards. The design of the control board can be viewed and downloaded on the Github platform.

The circuit board made of epoxy resin must, of course, not get too hot. Bugeja used a material for the board with a glass transition temperature of 170 degrees Celsius and solder paste with a melting point of 165 degrees Celsius. This limitation leads to relatively high costs. Carl Bugeja extensively explains the functionality of his self-soldering circuit board in a video.
How practical a self-soldering circuit board is, is another question. The technology, of course, has some drawbacks. The uneven heat distribution, especially in larger boards, diminishes practicality. The same applies to the required expensive low-temperature solder and the need for a special high-temperature-resistant board.

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