Beaky is 100% correct and I agree fully. That's why all of my replacement pinball PCB's all use through hole parts and much larger solder pads than are really needed. They will (should?) take repeated soldering over the years even from repairers using boofy large plumbers soldering irons....
I can't understand what these other guys are thinking making surface mount boards when it just isn't required??
It probably comes down to cost and also availability of suitable parts??
I have just had a hell of a job sourcing some of the parts needed for my new Bally MPU board - some capacitors I even had to have a special run done at the factory as they simply don't make axial caps in the values and style needed any more - so maybe I have answered the question right there???
your mpu board was the one i was referring to Mike. I give credit where credit is due, you have designed your board for long term use. And they are repairable. I never believed in using small pads on my designs either. I took into account that the boards where going to be assembled by hand and not by machine and by process workers who didn't know how to set their soldering irons to the correct tempreture, plus the large pads also help in heat sinking any heat away from the components. When doing tests on prototype boards (Light chasers and led power supplies) I would do 2 things, 1. short the output and 2. wire a fluro ballast in series with a short to create a back emf surge to emulate large cable runs around metal objects. if any components failed (other than a fuse blowing ) then i would re design the circuit. I designed my boards for commercial use and they never came back for repair. I will admit the company I designed these boards for did sell them at a high price but once the word got around about how well their products worked a lot of companies preferred to spend the extra $$$ for robust electronic control gear over a cheaper product that crapped itself when they wired something incorrectly, had a short or had long cable runs around metal structures. There is a big difference in designing something that works well on a test bench and that works well in real life applications. But now a days with general consumer products it all comes down to price.
