I have bought Pieco Paste Press and T5 solder as an emergency replacement for my pneumatic paste dispenser. I work with 10mil pitch ICs and I was hoping that I can use Pieco with 27ga and even 30ga needle. However, I had problems with dispensing and have shared my experiences with Johnathan.

He took all my problems on board, supplied me with new Pieco Press and new batch of T5 solder paste and even gave me set of dispensing needles. After warming up solder paste to 60 degrees C I was able to use Pieco Press with 27ga needle.

Well, this is more than just great after sale support - this is an unprecedented dedication for a customer to succeed with product Jonathan sales.

Once again thank you Jonathan!

Cheers

Adam

I've the full set of needles and tried T5 leaded with Pieco-Paste-Press.

It worked great. Even the violet colored thin 30Ga needles worked with T5!

The only problem I see is that you need to get used to control the dispenser.

Overall, a nice way to get little dabs of paste right where you want them. It is lightweight, even when loaded, and doesn't get in the way when applying paste in tight areas (under a microscope). I really like how you can hold it like a pencil: sandwiched between your thumb and middle finger, you can use your index finger to actuate the dispensing lever. You don't need to apply that much pressure to get it to go, but be careful that you watch out for pressure build up in the syringe, and release the piston before you put it down, otherwise a bit might creep out.

If I could change anything about this, it would really only be the dispensing lever. The lever can swing a total of about 25 degrees or so, but only 12 of those do anything. The other 12 degrees are just extra traversing space, and it is sort of bothersome. The fix would probably be to change the design of the little sheet of metal at the end of the lever that pushes the plunger rod foreword, but if you don't want to modify it yourself, find a stronger spring to replace the larger of the two, and that'll keep the lever from jiggling.

This device makes it much easier and more precise to lay down paste by hand.

I purchased and tried
-Type-5 leaded paste
-Type-5 low temp paste
-Needle assortment kit

The 25 and 23 ga needles worked fine. The 25ga is great for 0.5mm to 2mm pitch parts. The 23ga is faster for 1mm to 2mm pitch stuff. Large SMT parts I found were faster without the press and just using the syringe cap with a hole in it. Smaller than 0.5mm pitch is possible, but you run the risk of shorts and balls. Anything smaller than 0.9mm pitch, I recommend magnification when applying it.

When using these needles it was fairly easy to set the flow rate with the paste press. The flow didn't stop, but that's an issue with the paste press and not these needles.

The 27ga needle was too small for even this Type-5 paste. The paste's ball size is small, but not small enough for this size needle. If you get it to flow through the 27 or 30 ga needles, you have different paste than I did. I tried all five 27ga needles with everything from cold, warm and hot paste. The paste was fresh, the press was new. Neither the leaded or lead-free-low-temp stuff would flow. I nearly cracked the syringe trying to get it to flow.

Do yourself a favor and just by the 23 and 25ga needles separate.

To clean the paste out of the needles, stand them upright in 90% isopropyl alcohol using a pen cap or something like that. Tape the pen cap to something with a little bit of vibration and come back in an hour. You might need to replace the alcohol once if the needle 'just' fit in the pen cap. I taped mine to my PC case...the fan is old.

I was able to use the 27ga needles to dispense epoxy (one time use here), but they worked great in this application.

Overall I'm happy with the press, paste and 25ga/23ga needles. The 27ga needles were a disappointment, but I found they were not needed anyway and it was only a couple bucks. No worries.

I used the press, and both types of Type-5 solder with the "Precision Dispensing Needles" assortment kit. I used it a lot before writing this review.

I posted a review of the needles already:
https://www.tindie.com/products/Pieco/precision-dispensing-needles-qty-10/

The 25ga needle and low-temp Type5 paste worked great for repairs. It really shines when used for fine pitch spot repairs. There are better options for whole boards.

Once you understand the press's limitations it's very usable. Releasing the lever DOES NOT slow the flow rate. Once you press the lever and it starts flowing, your options are to apply more pressure to flow faster, or press the plunger-release lever to start over. It can be a pain, so you will find yourself applying paste to one pad, then quickly moving to the next, then next, then next.. it can get frantic if you have the flow set too high. Long delays between pads, like when you're switching boards, can be solved by wiping the excess on a paper towel taped to the table.

I set the flow rate, apply paste to as many pads as possible, release the plunger, place the parts, then put the board into an oven. This even works for spot repairs since I can use the low temp paste and stop the reflow profile before the final high-temp ramp-up.

Understand that the amount of paste is important. If you have too much, the joint might look good, but you'll have lots of loose solder balls all over the place or excessive shorts. When I do whole board, I still use a stencil. For the cost of a stencil, the speed and quality can't be beat.

Even though it's a niche product, the price is a bit much IMHO. The only reason I bought one is because I got work to foot the bill. I'll get one for myself if the price gets to ~$25. I would pay $5 more for an automatic pressure relief.

Overall I'm happy with the press.

When replacing parts on a very sensitive board, it can be very difficult. This low-temp stuff with the press makes it fast and stress free. I had some very fine pitch parts with no exposed pads to replace. Taking them off was difficult enough, but soldering new ones on was nearly impossible because of the 0201 parts all around it. I used this low temp stuff with the 25ga needle and reflowed the board in an oven (truncated profile). The 25ga needle was too large, but I simply wiped the board after each failed attempt with no problems. In fact, toward the end I realized the amount of paste that gets stuck between the pad and mask was enough solder for the part. So my process was to apply paste, wipe it off the mask, apply a tiny bit of flux, then part, then reflow. Worked great.

Overall summary... buy the low-temp stuff (Type5) if you need to do spot repairs of tricky assemblies.

I posted earlier a review saying that the product was not useful to me. The vendor offered a refund so I returned the product and today I got a confirmation for the refund. Good customer support.

I haven't used it for a full board yet, but tested it out for a couple minutes. It is infinitely easier than using the normal plunger, especially with finer gauge needles. Also, no hassle of setting up some kind of vacuum pump system to dispense paste. This is certainly a cool thing.

I had high expectations for this product but it end up in a dusty drawer. Construction is flimsy, inserting a 10CC ChipQuick soldering paste syringe was a challenge (barely fit), it does not provide any advantage over using a plain syringe and it keeps pressuring the solder paste even after you release the handle which causes it to keep flowing. Total failure in my use case. I ended up using stencils from OSHStencil and had much better results than dropping the paste manually.

The paste press seems like a good idea, but after having used it I can say it is a fail. The tool is far too top heavy to effectively control with one hand. When dispensing paste it does not stop when you release the lever. If all you need to do is dispense a thick bead of paste onto a stencil it works. But so does the FREE plunger you get with any tube of paste. This tool is definitely not for fine placement of solder paste on anything smaller than a 1206 pad. The paste press is far too expensive for what it does.

Thank you

I've used this tool for soldering QFN (with thermal pad) and SSOP packages mainly. No more worries about creating (and subsequently having to remove) short-circuits between pins (as before with the soldering iron). I just lay down a line of solder paste on the rows of pads, place/align the chip, and reflow the paste. When melting, the line of solder paste sort of "shrinks" and sticks to the PCB/component pads and makes really nice solders.

The tool is comfortable, I didn't find it awkward to use for about 2-hour long work sessions.

I found that I prefer using 25ga needles, which I bought at the same time as the dispenser from Pieco.

Very satisfied overall, so far.

This "miniature caulking gun" works fine . The 10mm syringes available locally seem to be 3-5mm too long so I had to cut one down. If it had fit, I would have had to cut off one of the syringe's handles in order for it to clear the lever, anyway.

It seems to be reasonably well made - maybe a bit pricey, but it will certainly save me some time and hand cramping in the long run and I wish that I'd had one when I did my last SMD board!

If only I had discovered this years ago, it would have saved me 1) my eyesight, 2) my mental sanity. Great accessory if you assemble you'e own boards!

Definitely a huge improvement on using a plunger to dispense solder paste. I like the design which puts your hand close to the dispensing tip for good accuracy. It appears to be made of sturdy materials, but I'm not sure how using sheet metal screws as pivot points for the trigger mechanism will hold up to long term use.

My only criticism is that the trigger return spring isn't stiff enough. Sometimes it sticks and I have to return it manually.

Overall, I like it a lot.