Mobile phones. Tablets. Laptops.
There is a good chance that you have one of these (how else could you be reading this?) and still a good chance you have at least two of them. There is also a good chance that these devices have charging ports and headphone jacks that are heavily relied upon to keep the battery full and play audio through the headphones. These ports use what are referred to as edge connectors, and this is an application where Indium Corporation’s Solder Fortification preforms can be applied to strengthen the solder joint.
What is an edge connector? Techopedia defines it as, “Part of a printed circuit board, an edge connector is a part on the edge of the board that is plugged into the matching socket of a device or computer.” Edge connector reliability is extremely important to device users because we use them every single day; without them we couldn't get energy into, or audio out of , our devices. With weak solder joints in these areas our devices would not charge properly and we wouldn’t be able to listen to our music/podcast/audio-book/cat video through our headphones. Now, think about how many times you plug and unplug your device. It’s safe to assume that there are at least 300 charger plug-ins a year, and that is with light usage, and probably just as many headphone plug-ins. Have you ever roughly inserted or removed a wire from your connectors, making things even worse? This repeated stress on the solder joint caused by the repeated plugging and unplugging can create reliability issues over time. To avoid the impact of the wear and tear, extra solder via Solder Fortification preforms can be added to the solder paste at the joint to increase the joint's strength and improve its ability to withstand the mechanical stress.
To learn more about voiding and Indium’s Solder Fortification preforms, please visit our website and YouTube channel.
To purchase samples of our Solder Fortification preforms, please visit buy.solder.com.
You can also contact me directly at rmckerrow@indium.com.