Soldering near a filled plane

I feel your pain. A few months ago, our new boss decided he'd have us save $20 and leave off the solder mask on a prototype board. It was a fairly simple board but did have a half-dozen TSOPs on it. Our tech wasn't a happy camper. To save that $20 he wasted several hours; good use of time.

My suggestion is to acknowledge the lesson learned and suck it up. ;-)

A paste/liquid flux might help by assisting the solder in "wetting" the traces and the ground plane area. It's probably okay, at least in most spots, for there to be solder on the ground plane as long as it doesn't bridge to a trace. The flux should help by making the copper areas more attractive to the solder so that it beads up rather than laying there in a passive puddle.

Of course, a small tip on the iron and fine gauge solder will help but I assume you've already tried that?

Re-order the board with a solder mask, and chalk it up to experience.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Put nail polish on the ground plane? Fumes might be an issue if the iron hits it.

Kapton tape, if you can find/afford it?

That's how I order my boards, and I really don't have much problem. Use a clean, fine-tip iron, a good magnifier (I use an assembly microscope), and keep the solder-wick handy for when the solder just wants to bridge.

I find that big uninsulated solder plane to be handy when I need someplace to put a ground probe, or if I need to dead-bug bits of circuit onto a prototype board.

Spray the board with clear KRYLON

try drawing a solder mask on with a permanent marker, or a paint pen.

Well, I tried spraying it with conformal coating and it seems to work well. Thanks for all your help guys.

Don

Uline.com sells Kapton tape.

It's not expensive or hard to find. 18 rolls of 1/2" x 108' Kapton tape is $30 at DigiKey. A single roll of the same is about $6 at Amazon. Wider and narrower is also readily available.