With surface mount parts being so thoroughly entrenched, one might think that through-hole parts (sometimes written as thru-hole) and through-hole soldering are no longer much of a part of the manufacturing scene. while it is true that the vast majority of pars today are surface mount, there are still plenty enough through-hole parts being used. Enough, in fact, that we have three different methods of processing: hand solder, selective solder and wave solder.
We hand solder through-hole components when there are only a few or are on only a few boards. We will often use our selective solder machine when there are a mix of thru-hole and surface mount parts but not enough boards to justify creation of a wave solder fixture.
Wave soldering gets the “go” when we have a lot of boards, especially when there will be multiple runs of the board, such that it’s more efficient to create a wave palette.
Though wave soldering has been around for decades, it still serves the industry well – and it’s fascinating to watch. If you’ve got thru-hole components (or surface mount) that need to be assembled, jump to our PCB Assembly quote page and see what it will take to have us build them for you.
Duane Benson
Surfing level, advanced