I have designed a small 2-sided PCB with through-hole parts, which I plan to have fabbed professionally. Given the lack of space (2"x2" was a design constraint to keep costs low, as I will need a number of these boards), I'm using my through-hole component pins/leads as vias in some cases.
Looking at the render (KiCad), I believe I will be able to solder all of the pins needed on the front of board with one possible exception- I have three 3-pin male headers on the board, which will be used with shunt jumpers. A few of these pins have front-side copper connections and will require front-side soldering. I'm concerned the the plastic spacer on the header will prevent me from soldering the pins on the front side of the board.
With some force, I can slide the spacer up and down the pins, so it occurred to me to:
- solder the bottom of the header pins
- slide the spacer up the header pins with small pliers
- solder the top of the header pins
- slide the spacer back down into place.
However, I'm concerned about the amount of physical stress this would put on the solder joints. Is this a reasonable method? Is there another method I should use? Or is there an alternate component I should be using?
For reference, here's the render:
The three 3-pin vertical headers on the right side of the board are the components in question.