Wave flow soldering is a method of soldering all the connections on a printed circuit board in a single step on a machine (instead of one at a time by hand).
A wave flow soldering machine has the following parts:
- a heated tank containing molten solder covered with a thin layer of flux
- one or more printed circuit board fixtures
- a mechanical wave generator
Printed circuit boards are populated with components (on automatic part placement machines and/or manually by human assemblers). The populated printed circuit boards are placed in the fixtures. As each fixture goes into the wave flow soldering machine the wave generator sends a wave of solder down the length of the heated tank. The top of this wave just touches the bottom of the printed circuit board, soldering all the connections. After the fixtures leave the wave flow soldering machine they are allowed to cool a while and the printed circuit boards are removed.
The soldered printed circuit boards are then washed to remove any flux residue left by the wave soldering machine, then sent to be tested to make sure they function as intended.
Wave flow soldering works best for "through hole mounted" components.
