How do you hold SMD part in place while soldering?

I go through this every time I have PCBs I need to populate with SMD parts, and this has become more an issue as pin spacings have gotten tighter, and my hands have become less steady with age. How do you hold SMD part in place while soldering?

PCB Assembly
November 22, 2023

For ICs: Just flux pen a little, then put some solder on one pin in the corner. Then put the chip near it. Now just flow the solder with your iron and nudge it into place with a pick, tweezers or the finger whatever works for that part. Then you can align all the other sides by heating the solder a little and nudging it. Then tack the opposite corner and off you go.

For little parts: put a bit of solder on one pad then heat it up and slide one pad of the component in with the tweezers. Pull the iron off and it stays in place, you can use as much force on the tweezers as you need to. Then just finish up the other pins. You can go pretty fast with this if you’re placing multiple parts just prepare one pad on each footprint, then slide in the parts and then go back and do the other pins.

Oliver Smith

Oliver is an experienced electronics engineer skilled in PCB design, analog circuits, embedded systems, and prototyping. His deep knowledge spans schematic capture, firmware coding, simulation, layout, testing, and troubleshooting. Oliver excels at taking projects from concept to mass production using his electrical design talents and mechanical aptitude.

Oliver Smith

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