Patent ID: 6915941

Claim:
A method for locally applying solder to a set of preselected conductor areas on a printed circuit board, said method comprising: aligning said set of preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board with a corresponding set of fluxers; applying a flux locally to said set of preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board; aligning said set of preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board with a corresponding set of preheaters; drying the flux applied on said set of preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board; forcing a molten solder within a solder reservoir to flow upwardly through a set of solder wave nozzles so as to clean and preheat said set of solder wave nozzles; aligning said set of preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board with said set of solder wave nozzles and maintaining the printed circuit board at a height slightly above said set of solder wave nozzles to the extent that the molten solder is prevented from escaping from between said printed circuit board and said set of solder wave nozzles; producing a relatively low wave of solder through said set of solder wave nozzles to cause said relatively low wave of solder to contact and preheat said preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board; and producing a relatively high wave of solder through said set of solder wave nozzles to locally solder said preselected conductor areas on the printed circuit board.