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Assembly & Soldering

How an OpenSkyhawk board goes from bare PCB to populated and inspected. The part choices are all deliberately reflow-and-inspect friendly, so a hobbyist setup handles them.

Photos coming

This guide is text-complete but the step-by-step photos are still being produced — image placeholders are marked (photo TBD).

What you need

  • Soldering iron (fine tip) and/or a T962 reflow oven with solder paste and a stencil
  • Multimeter (continuity + voltage)
  • Flux, solder wick, tweezers, magnification for inspection

Why everything is inspectable

Every package on these boards is chosen so the joints are visible after reflow — SOIC, SSOP, TSSOP, HTSSOP, LQFP, SOT-23/223, through-hole. No QFN/DFN/BGA. That means you can verify every critical joint by eye (and the HTSSOP thermal pad by continuity). See Hardware Standards.

Placement

  • LEDs on the front face; everything else on the back — ICs, passives, connectors, MOSFETs.
  • Through-hole connectors are vertical and accessible from the panel side.
  • (photo TBD — populated front and back)

Order of work

  1. Paste + reflow the back-side SMD (ICs, passives, MOSFETs, regulator). (photo TBD)
  2. Inspect every joint — bridges, tombstones, the AMS1117 and any HTSSOP thermal pad (continuity-check the pad to GND). (photo TBD)
  3. Hand-solder through-hole — connectors, headers, crystal.
  4. Front-side LEDs last (5050 strings; mind the anode notch — the chamfered corner is the anode on the project's 5050 part).
  5. Power-on check before anything else — verify the 3.3 V rail and look for shorts before the first flash. Continue at Bring-Up & Testing.

Connectors & harnesses

Crimp harnesses per the Connector & Harness Guide — Molex Mini-Fit Jr for power/bus, JST-XH for signal. 24 AWG throughout.

Don't power a board you haven't inspected

A solder bridge on the 3.3 V rail can take out the regulator or the MCU. Inspect and continuity-check first, then power.