SMD soldering is not actually that hard until you start getting to the really small stuff; you just need some extra tools and a decent amount of practice. The s

SMD soldering is not actually that hard until you start getting to the really small stuff; you just need some extra tools and a decent amount of practice. The smallest packages you're not likely to have a choice about are QFPs, which have 0.5mm pin spacing. In order to solder these, you need: * ESD tweezers (available for a couple bucks on Aliexpress, you want a set that contains at least a pair of fine straight tips and a pair of hooked tips) * A decent temperature-controlled iron. I generally use a Pinecil, but a TS-100 is also quite nice. I generally use the D24 tip; for all but the most detailed work, the super-fine conical tips are more trouble than they're worth. * 63/37 SnPb rosin core solder, preferably 0.3mm diameter or smaller. I use ChipQuik RASW.031, but it doesn't matter that much. This should cost somewhere around €10 * A self-standing magnifier. The microscope I use cost €300 on eBay, but a third hand is available for under €10. You probably don't need any more than 10x magnification. * Copper braid. A small spool (it goes a long way) should be around €10-20 * (Optional) A bottle of strong beer or a glass of wine. If in Eastern Europe, palinca or vodka is an acceptable substute With this stuff at hand, if you're going the beer route, drink it. It'll have two effects: your hands will shake less, and you'll care less how it looks. Now, tape your board down and set up your magnifier so that you can comfortably look through it as you work. Pick a pad on the footprint of the biggest thing that needs to be soldered (preferably on the side that you hold your iron with). Apply enough solder that there's a noticable bulge. Now, pick up the chip with the tweezers in your non-dominant hand, place it in the right place. While holding the chip in place with the tweezers, melt the solder you placed earlier using your iron until it wicks onto the pin of the chip. Check the opposite corner and make sure that it's lined up, then put a small blob of solder there. Don't worry if you bridge some pins; it's easy enough to fix. Now, solder the rest of the pins. If you're feeling dexterous, you can solder each pin individually, but I don't usually bother. Alternatively (and this is what I usually do), just solder all the pins down with a blob every couple of pins. Most of them won't end up bridged because soldermask repels solder. Once every pin is soldered down, press the wick against the joint with the iron to suck up all the excess solder. Inspect all the joints to make sure you've gotten all the bridges. If there are still some, there are a number of different techniques to get rid of them, but usually just sliding the tip of your iron along the space between the pins will be enough. Worst case, put more solder on and rewick it. Congratulations, you're done! Repeat for each chip, until you're good at it :-D (FWIW, I learned from this guide http://goodfet.sourceforge.net/construction/ http://goodfet.sourceforge.net/construction/ , which goes into more detail, and also has a nice technique involving taping chips down that works very well)