Homebrew PCBs

El 14/02/13 21:53, scubadogct escribi\ufffd:
> I have soldered surface mount before but only when there is a resist layer present.  At the moment I do not have access to any resist.
>
It's not really a problem.

I've hand soldered 0.4mm pitch LQFPs on a home made board without solder 
resist. (Making the board with that fine pitch was a far bigger trial 
than soldering the chip to it). Solder wick and flux are your best friends.

After many detours using solder paste, stencils, hot air etc. I've come 
to the conclusion that I can solder SMD faster and more neatly with a 
soldering iron. I've found using some kapton tape to hold the part in 
position, and use plenty of flux from a flux dispensing pen before 
soldering gives very good results and it's easy to do, since getting the 
part positioned by taping it down is easier than trying to tack corners 
on any of the packages with pins on all 4 sides.