Hi,
I’m designing a PCB for the XIAO BLE. As part of this, I want to use the battery terminals on the rear. As I don’t have a reflow or hot air station, I’m forced to use a through hole approach.
I tried the official Seeed KiCAD footprint, but it wasn’t very reliable. For the 2nd variation on my design, I made the plated through holes into larger oval shapes, but that didn’t work properly either (my first attempt only connected to + terminal)
Now, my soldering technique isn’t great as I’m a newbie in this field, so that might be the real issue 
Could anyone offer any suggestions on how I might improve this?
I think SMD pads and hot air station would be the best solution (I’d love to try SMD resistors too), but I can’t justify that right now.
Thanks in advance,
Tom
… use narrow tip… use flux- place tip of Iron on pad and hole plate … flow solder… remove iron
Thanks @cgwaltney, I think it’s the narrow tip I need! The tip of my PINECIL is very small, but I think it’s too wide.
Hi there,
Do not make the ovals too big, You want the PAD on the Xiao to be the bigger of the pair. Plated through Hole (check) I see a GIGANTIC ground Plane around the Bat minus…no,no… Use a pad then trace connect it to the ground plane. USE solder PASTE not round roll. and as @cgwaltney FLUX plenty of flux when you solder over do it. WHY?
the flux helps stabilize the temp and allow the solder to flow instead of too much heat DRY heat , that will melt stuff and lift PCB PADs.
I have soldered over 30 by hand at one go without one failure. Using that technique.
Check out the thread I have on here showing the PCB.
HTH
GL PJ 
FYI the tip should be able to fit down into the hole and touch the BAT PAD. FYI. 
You can use the round roll to fill the hole after it’s attached and tested is what I do too.
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i dont do much soldering at all… and for a very long time i did not use flux or used flux core solder… I needed some more solder and with Radio Shack out of buisness, i ordered a little kit from amazon… one of the best purchased of my electronic life, it came with a round petri dish of flux, a coil of solder and two small screw drivers phillips and flat head. I now use the flat head screw driver to slap the flux on the new parts. It makes an obvious and immediate difference… Kinda like replacing a cpu without thermal paste… you cant just use the old paste and call it good… It just dont work that way.
you apply the flux as a goop, like vasiline if it is my kind
you apply the iron… the heat immediatly turns the goop to a fluid and it runs all over the art area.
The heat is applied and the solder applied
the only problem is the flux resin needs to be cleaned off with alchool
i use pump hand sanitizer for this
my advice… if you dont have flux you dont know flux…
