[Elecraft] Holding Through-Hole Components in Place Whilst Soldering

[Jack Smith]

In addition to the technique described by Chris, K6DBG, I've found a few 
simple household items make a useful holding fixture.

1. A piece of thin, relatively soft foam, perhaps 1/2" thick.
2. A few spring clothespins
3. A piece of backing material, such as part of a scrap PCB or a piece 
of aluminum.

Insert the parts through the holes, and lay the foam on the component 
side. Place the backing material on top of the foam, making the foam the 
filling in the sandwich and the PCB and backing material the bread. Use 
spring clothespins to hold the sandwich together. It's important that 
you use a clamp arrangement that is not too strong or you will flex the 
PCB. An old spring clothespin provides about the correct force in my 
experience. A new clothespin is almost too strong.

Flip the PCB over and solder away. As long as you don't poke the 
component leads too hard, they will stay in place nicely.

You can see a photograph of this approach at pages 6 & 7 of my Z90 
Assembly Manual, on line at 
http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/Documents/Assembly%20Instructions.pdf.

For larger PCBs, I use a longer piece of aluminum backing plate and 
larger foam. This approach works best if you start with the small, 
close-to-the-board parts first, such as resistors and the taller parts 
last. I usually half-a-dozen components at a time, solder and then 
proceed to the next group.

The photographs I mentioned are of a 4915 KHz bandpass filter and using 
the foam holder, assembly went very fast. I built three dozen of these 
with an average assembly time of around 20 minutes each, a good part of 
which time was associated with the toroid cores and connectors.

Jack K8ZOA