How do I solder this USB Connector?
Provided your PCB already has the correct footprint, the best way to solder this is hot-air/paste or an oven.
Here's a picture of what the footprint for a similar connector (or the same, I'm not exactly sure) looks like on a board I designed recently.
I soldered these connectors onto the PCBs by paste and hot-air (you can check out a quick video on what hot-air looks like here). The important thing is getting all of the contact points molten at once, otherwise you'll be stuck with mechanical stresses on the joints (which is, obviously, undesirable) or bad connections.
An oven and solder-paste could also work quite similarly. A general method for that would be to apply paste, mount the connector, put the board in the oven and heat it until the joint forms.
Your best option assuming that you do not have hot air gun or soldering iron with a very small tip is to place the connector on your PCB, solder all pins at once and then remove shorts using solder wick. Some tin will remain between pins and pads holding your connector.
I tried numerous methods and found the following to work best:
- Use a fine tip
- Flux on the connector pins and on all the pads on the board
- Pre-tin the connector pins one by one
- Place the connector on the board - carefully align all the pins on the pads, leaving a bit of extra space on each pad.
- Carefully apply pressure on the connector while soldering one of the side flaps to the board. Careful not to move the connector. If moved by accident, desolder the side flap and try again (from step 3).
- Solder the other side flap. The connector will not move easily but still be careful.
- Solder each pin to its pad by touching the soldering iron's tip to the extra space you left on each pad. You might need to add a bit of solder to the tip before soldering each pin but be very careful not to add too much or you might risk creating bridges between the pads.
Good luck!
EDIT: typo