Homebrew PCBs

On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Mike Wirth <mwirth@...> wrote:
>
> *Solder resist:*
>
> On commercial boards, I gotten used to (lazy? :-) having solder resist over
> the copper, especially to help prevent bridging between the 0.5mm spacing
> pins.  Any solution here

If the pins are 0.5mm or finer, you're better off not having solder mask.

Have a look in section 3.7.2 of this doc:

  http://www.atmel.com/images/atmel-8826-seeprom-pcb-mounting-guidelines-surface-mount-packages-applicationnote.pdf

As far as soldering it goes, I'd go for lots of liquid flux.

> Won't have a stencil in this case, but could hand paint the resist.

You can make your own stencil thus:

  http://lowpowerlab.com/blog/2013/02/11/diy-smd-metal-stencils-the-definitive-tutorial/

> Sorry for being such a newbie, but since I'm so short on time

Mike, welcome to the group.  You're certainly not coming across as a
newbie!  Hope you have fun here.  If you get stuck over the next few
days, holler and we'll laugh.  Oops, I mean help!

Mitch.