[sdiy] Moving to Surface Mount - lots of questions

[David G Dixon]

> the reliability is, repairing is probably easier. One of the 
> problems I have with TH is when it comes to desolder a 40pin 
> chip it takes forever, heat pin, desolder, heat pin, 
> desolder, etc, etc... with SMD got some solder wick, lay it 
> across 20 pins, heat up, done..

Ah, yes, but with through-hole (at least with smaller chips) you can use
sockets, so repair is a snap.

One really nice thing about SMD passives is that you can very easily lift up
one end for testing, and then just stick it back down again.  Also, removing
and replacing resistors and caps almost never damages the pads (where as
solder suckers can quite easily suck pads off of through hole boards,
especially one-sided ones).  Also, adding capacitance or decreasing
resistance is as easy as stacking another component on top of the existing
one.  That can come in pretty handy sometimes.