You actually will see that on products where if you look at the board, and then like the the lug doesn't go all the way through the board. And if you get the right kind of connector, you can also do what's called paste and pad which is where they inject the paste into the through hole, which is which works for like USB micro USB type C connectors. Like USB connectors, a lot of USB connectors are surface mount but then they have solder lugs. Now, there's also other rules to this as well. I'm going to bet you it's that is there's more of a through hole of a connector being built than a surface mount connector.
I don't know if that's because they just cost more in general or is it's they're not as many manufactured of the same connector. For some reason SMT connectors cost more. It's also the price difference where I've noticed is SMT for the same connector. Yeah, that might work for you in your lab, but the second Baba out in the field has to pull a cable assembly off like that SMD connectors come and Going with a surface mount but if it's being yanked off the board, especially with a cable assembly, you might want to go with a through hole. If it's going into the board, only, then you're probably okay. Like basically it's how many insertions is that connector going to have to withstand through its lifecycle?Īlso, which direction is the force coming from on that? Yeah, Those are always I won't say that I've seen through hole FFC connectors, but majority of them are going to be surface mount. So like it's inside the the unit like an FFC cable, something like that. But that might not be a concern, because it might be a connector that is only used during assembly. The peel strength of the SMT pads is what you only are really relying on with SMD SMT connectors. That means you're going to have basically through the entire barrel worth of solder and fill it's on sides. Whereas through hold, you have the entire via that's plated to the FR four and both sides of the adhesive trying to yank itself out of the entire board.Įspecially if especially if you have IPC class three soldering on on through whole stuff. When you have a surface mount part, you're relying on basically the bond between the copper and the adhesive that's on the FR for. It's it's all about mechanical retention. Well, I mean, there's the mechanical advantage, right? But there are some problems I guess when switching to surface mount for connectors, connectors is like one of those last strongholds of through hole. And you if you can cutting out the through whole process makes your product just much less expensive to make. Yeah, more service mounts, if possible, if possible, convert as much as you can to surface mount because it is less expensive to assemble. Because one of the one of the things that we tell our customers all the time is more through hole, not more through all. One thing I wanted to bring up, but we were already in like an hour long on just talking about through whole, like parts and layout considerations.
So last week, we had a huge topic about through hole components. Welcome to the macro fab engineering podcast.