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Wave soldering and reflow soldering

Currently, mass-production printed circuit boards (PCBs) are mostly wave soldered or reflow soldered, though hand soldering of production electronics is also still widely used.

In wave soldering, components are prepped (trimmed or modified) and installed on the PCB. Sometimes, to prevent movement they are temporarily kept in place with small dabs of adhesive or secured with a fixture, then the assembly is passed over flowing solder in a bulk container. This solder flow is forced to produce a standing wave so the whole PCB is not submerged in solder, but rather just touched. The result is that solder stays on pins and pads, but not on the PCB itself.

Reflow soldering is a process in which a solder paste (a mixture of prealloyed solder powder and a flux-vehicle that has a peanut butter-like consistency) is used to stick the components to their attachment pads, after which the assembly is heated by an infrared lamp, a hot air pencil, or, more commonly, by passing it through a carefully controlled oven.

Since different components can be best assembled by different techniques, it is common to use two or more processes for a given PCB. For example, surface mounted parts may be reflow soldered first, with a wave soldering process for the through-hole mounted components coming next, and bulkier parts hand-soldered last.