Raspberry Pi Gets a Production Quality Upgrade

Raspberry Pi made a surprising announcement this week: Thanks to an updated soldering process, customer returns of the Raspberry Pi 5 are down by 50%. Sony, which helps Pi manufacture its tiny computers, worked with Pi to change how it solders through-hole connectors. The updated manufacturing process not only improves quality but also reduces production time by 15%.

Until version 5 of the Raspberry Pi, any parts that required a hole completely through the PCB required a solder bath. Pi tried to avoid through-hole components as much as possible but used them for connectors. Just placing those parts can be a pain. Pi workers originally did some by hand, but eventually had machines do the work. Still, the solder bath was a pain point. The solution is a process known as intrusive reflow.

“Thanks to our work with Sony, we have eliminated all of the through-hole specific actions from our ...