When HN users recommended it
1 HN user recommended this in 2024, in one comment.
20072026
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
1 HN user recommended this in 2024, in one comment.
Each tall tick is one HN user's first recommendation. A short tick is the same user again. Click a tick to jump to the comment.
Buy yourself some laser-cut paste-mask stencils out of Mylar (https://www.pololu.com/product/446/). Get the room-temperature stable solder paste from Chip Quick (https://www.chipquik.com/store/index.php?cPath=470&osCsid=il...). Buy a cheap temperature controlled hot plate (https://www.amazon.com/Soiiw-Microcomputer-Soldering-Preheat...). Get some cheater glasses with 3x or greater magnification, and some good tweezers. Place parts by hand, and solder them within minutes on the hot plate. Maybe watch a Youtube video or two. Easier than it seems. I've done LGA-12 with a setup like the above (a ST LIS2D12 3-axis accelerometer). Also, goes without saying that you should get a soldering iron with a fine tip for large part rework, and possibly a hot air pencil for reworking the tinier parts.
For the parts with pins you can't reach with a probe, be sure to leave a way to test connectivity of the pins with a DMM. For the super tiny parts with the hidden pads, I like to have a series resistor that I can remove, and then use a DMM to check that you can find the ESD diodes on each pin of the package.