A wave solder pallet is a reliable and inexpensive fixture for soldering through-hole components. The pallet is typically made from a synthetic material, such as Durapol or Durostone®. Macaos supports the design of both full and selective wave solder pallets.
The Macaos Pallet Creation module allows you to easily and quickly design the following types of pallets:
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A wave solder pallet exposes the entire solder side of the PCB to the solder wave. For panels, there is an opening for each board in the panel. This would typically be used to support small, thin or irregularly shaped PCBs as they travel through the wave soldering machine.
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A selective wave solder pallet exposes only regions with plated through-hole (PTH) components to the solder wave, while protecting other regions from the solder wave. This would typically be used when soldering PTH components on a board which also has surface-mounted (SMT) components, gold fingers, ground planes, heat-sensitive or other areas needing protection on the solder side of the PCB.
Both styles of wave solder pallets have the same frame, with stiffener/solder-dam on all four edges of the top side, and rotary PCB fasteners. The bottom edge of the rail fingers is flush with the bottom side of the PCB. The leading and trailing edges, as well as all four corners, are chamfered.
In Macaos much of the pallet design is calculated automatically. You need only define the following:
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outer dimensions and material parameters
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placement of PCB fasteners
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solder wave openings (selective wave solder pallets only)
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component pockets (selective wave solder pallets only)
