Who's down for some SMD layouts?

a "pcb series" with double ability to install SMD and normal components would be perfect for those hard-to-find parts (lowtide for example already has room for both types of j201). But despite everything an entirely SMD project would be fun to try (y)
 
hells yeah man. ive had to solder a few bits and bobs now. no resistors or caps as yet, but im definatly down for it. fun times.
 
Rpschultz13 said:
I was going to put this on my Christmas list. Is 1206 (1/4W) a good size?

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My personal opinion:
  • 1206 or larger - piece of cake, almost as easy as through-hole
  • 0805 - easy enough to work with, smallest thing I'll solder without magnification
  • 0603 - can hand solder with magnification
  • 0402 - will not hand solder, but can do with paste+reflow
  • 0201 or 10005 - absolutely freaking not, get that away from me
 
I ended up looking at SMD stuff for something I'm thinking of laying out... is it easier/satisfying to do by hand vs getting it populated by the pub fabricators?

I realise this is a little off topic!
 
LukeFRC said:
I ended up looking at SMD stuff for something I'm thinking of laying out... is it easier/satisfying to do by hand vs getting it populated by the pub fabricators?

I realise this is a little off topic!
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Again my personal opinion, it's WAY easier to get it populated by the board house, and they will most likely do a better job than you can by yourself.

That being said, for low quantities I find it satisfying to use a solder paste stencil and squeegee the paste on, then place the components and reflow the boards. If you're just doing a handful of boards this can honestly be fun, but if you're doing hundreds of boards it gets real old real fast.

Hand soldering the components on one at a time can be fine if you enjoy hand soldering in general, but it's certainly not fast or easy.

EDIT: Just realized I forgot to mention, board houses will want extra information when assembling boards, likes a BOM and a centroid file, and the level of detail in the BOM and formatting of the centroid are going to depend on the manufacturer. There's an extra bit of time that goes into setting that up, but once you get the hang of it, it's not much extra work on your end.
 
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I’d be down for some projects that use SOIC to fit a larger circuit into a 125B. Like the Mini Heterodyne.
 
For myself, my limit as far as hand soldering is 0603s (with magnification), mainly due to my eyesight. For my own layouts using SMD, I tend to favor 0603s as I can build them myself, plus I always try to get the board as small as possible.

As far as my work, we go down to 0201s via PnP. If I'm doing a mod for testing or development, I can hand solder 0402s...but it's not comfortable. ;)
 
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