How to solder flexible connector on 1.8 TFT?

[philipm]

Anyone soldered the 1.8 TFT screen by hand yet? I see it has a flexible connector which interfaces to pads on the PCB. I understand that the factory way to do this is with a "hot bar". Is there a way to do it with basic hand tools?

[adafruit]

yes...very carefully!

[philipm]

LOL!

Is there a way of doing it? How much heat will the flexible substrate take? I see the pads are two sided with vias. Can I simply tin the contacts on the PCB, place the connector on top and heat from the top?

[adafruit_support_bill]

That should work. Make sure everything is nice and clean so the solder will wet the pads as soon as it flows. The substrate will take a bit of heat, but the traces will likely lift first.

[ktownsend]

Here's how I did it. Get some thin no clean solder wire (I use 0.4mm in this video) and some magnification. It's important to have a decent sized tip for maximum heat transfer, and I tape the FPC down flat with high-temp (Kapton) tape to hold it in place:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R698z9QaypY&feature=plcp

[philipm]

Very nicely done! Thanks for sharing, great to see how it works and should look in practice.

[ktownsend]

I know ladyada and the Adafruit team came up with a different solution of putting some solder paste down and then pushing it towards/onto the FPC, and it seems to work well (though being half-blind I'm still hopeless without at least 5x magnification). The video is just what I've gotten used to but I use a microscope which tends to give your hand magical powers. With a decent sized tip and good solder wire, though, you should be able to reproduce the video above. 0.4mm is kind of hard to find sometimes (Digikey doesn't seem to have anything great ... I get my own in Japan, "goot SF-A0404" lead free), but that's what I use 90% of the time myself.

Kevin

[eliminster]

I have an issue...I lifted the pad on 14. I was replacing the screen and while lifting the old one off 14 tore from the board. According to the spec sheet, 1 and 14 are NC. Is there anything I can do to recover from this? Perhaps if you sell a board separately since I have a brand new 1.8" TFT? Suggestions?

[adafruit_support_bill]

According to the spec sheet, 1 and 14 are NC.

"NC" is "No Connection" so it shouldn't be a problem. You picked a good one to lift