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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Dead-Bugging a QFP32


This morning I spent a few hours soldering a QT1103.Now, the QT1103 comes in a QFP32 form factor --a form factor which was almost certainly never meant to be soldered by hand,and, just as certainly, never meant to be soldered without a nice little footprint of tinned smd pads.But you can connect to them, so I had read, byflipping 'em on their back and soldering small wires to each pin, the result of which you see above.While this may look like a terrible job (a) there aren't any bridges and (b) this is really really small -- these wires are individual strands of a stranded copper wire.
Of course, I have yet to see if the device will actually work after I went to all this trouble (I could have cooked it, after all).But whatever the outcome, it was certainly the most fiddly soldering job I've ever done. I begin to see why people pay $20-$40 to have a PCB made.