One of the quickest deliveries from China arrived last week right after I posted my unreasonably sized sprinkler controller where I mentioned that I would need to look into surface mount components if I was going to be able to fit the components that I needed into a size that would make getting a board manufactured a reasonable price.
Once again the price was an always reasonable $1 shipped so there was no reason not to just get one and try.
I’ve watched a handful of Youtube videos showing different techniques and talked to a few people with experience (including my wife the project manager who had experience from a previous life). There’s nothing like experience so given the information that I gathered I decided to just sit down and give it a shot.
I couldn’t quite get it to work as slick as the Youtube videos, but it definitely wasn’t as hard as I had thought it was going to be. I still need some practice, but my confidence level is much higher and I would not shy away from designing surface mount components into a board design which is really going to help.
There are much better references than me for tips and tricks on how to solder surface mount components by hand, so I won’t bother getting into it too much other than saying a good soldering iron, some rosin and patience, grab one of these kits and try it!
Here are my results, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
