[sdiy] Moving to Surface Mount - lots of questions

[ChristianH]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 12:10:11 +0100 Matthias Herrmann-DEU <Matthias.Herrmann at jeppesen.com> wrote:

> > On 06/12/11 07:45, Mike Beauchamp wrote:
> > > Hey all,
> > > after assembling a few PCB's with a few hundred resistors, I've been
> > > thinking about moving to Surface Mount for my next project. Please
> > > convince me, or talk me out of it :)
> > 
> > I haven't got the patience, dexterity or enthusiasm to sit and fiddle
> > with awkward through-hole components any more.  They're just plain
> > horrible to work with.
> 
> Well put. I use SMT for one-offs as well. I find hand soldering SMT much more 
> comfortable than TH, and replacing a resistor is done much easier and
> faster than when using TH... however, I used 1206 only so far. Will
> have to try 0805.

I found 0805 to be no harder to solder than 1206. However, it can be
slightly more tricky to route a track between the pads. In order to be
able to do modifications, I prefer 10 mil tracks - even if the
manufacturing process allows 6 mils. And it's useful that you *can*
resort to smaller widths occasionally if things are getting really tight.

The nice thing is, you'll aways manage to sneak in 0805 decoupling caps
exactly where they are needed.

Christian