The world’s first hand-soldering world championship and rework competition has been won by Ryosuke Matsunami from Japan with a perfect score of 634 points.

The competition that took place at the IPC Apex Expo 2019 in San Diego (USA) was attended by solder warriors from Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand. Runner-up Wenji Zhang from China scored 628 points while the third place was claimed by Le Van Linh from Vietnam with 625 points.

Two soldering rounds

The competition comprised of two rounds with a maximum of 75 minutes to complete them. First the competitors had to remove six specific components from a fully-functional soldered assembly, and clean the area of the removed components. The result was judged against the IPC-7711/7721C Rework, Modification, and Repair guidelines, and according to a standardized set of rules and best practices.

The second round consisted of mounting new parts in the locations of the removed components. The assemblies were then tested for function and evaluated in their entirety according to IPC-A-610G Class 3 criteria.

Perfect score

Matsunami, who completed the challenge within the allotted time of 75 minutes without a single error, obtained the perfect score of 634 points. This earned him $1,000 and the IPC Hand Soldering World Championship title.

Congratulations!