If I understand it correctly to work with SMD you'd need
1) Properly fabricated PCBs so forget about making at home
2) Very very clean environment and pure white in colour so you can spot them little pieces
3) hot air machine and good quality soldering iron with special tip (shovel shaped)
4) PCB holder
5) Stereo microscope with long stem or head goggles
6) Flux and solder and braid something or other
Have I missed anything?
1. Nice but not necessary. Besides
stripboard mentioned by
rolycat, there are also
SMD to DIP adapter boards for different package types. There are even some designed just for passives. Once soldered up, you can then insert them into a bread board or use solder to connect them as needed. It's also possible to dead bug with SMD's and some wire as well.
2. Good lighting is highly recommended (if not necessary, depending on eyesight), but clean, meh. Just enough of a spot to work on is all that's genuinely required.
3. Hot air is nice, but you can solder most packages just with an iron and appropriate tip, which in most cases, is a properly sized chisel/screwdriver shape for the pad. Drag tips have their place, as do the "shovel" types if I'm thinking of the same shape you are (rarely needed actually; meant for soldering a lot of pins simultaneously).
4. In most cases (i.e. single side), you don't actually need a PCB holder, as it will lay flat on your work surface. They do make working with components on both sides of a board far easier though.
5. Depends on the size packages you're working with and your eyesight. Magnifying head visor will be nice to use with larger packages for example, but may not be necessary. There will be a point however, that you will need magnification, and that will extend to a microscope if the package is small enough (say 0402 & smaller).
6. You'll want to use quality consumables, whether it be for SMD or thru-hole (solder, flux, and desolder braid/wick). Brands such as Multicore, Kester, Alpha (Cookson), AIM (American Iron & Metals), Indium, MG Chemicals (best wick/braid I've ever used), ITW/Techspray, and Stannol. There are some quality Japanese brands, but given the heavy counterfeiting, I'd just skip them. Simplest way to avoid getting garbage is to buy from distributors (eBay can be really risky IME).
As per flux, I'd recommend at least RMA, but RA would be better for a hobbyist IMHO, as it can work with both new and old work (heavy oxidation). In particular,
MG Chemicals Rosin 835 is available in small bottles (hobbyist friendly sizes of 100ml & 1L). I believe Stannol does as well. Some prefer tacky/gel flux for drag soldering (doesn't spread as much as liquid).
MG Chemicals 8341-10ml for example. Chipquik is another popular brand.
FWIW, I find no-clean formulations are harder to clean than rosin based flux as a general rule (purely synthetic; some is actually rosin or rosin based, which is easier, so read the datasheet if possible). I also opt for liquid in bottles as it's a lot less expensive than the disposable pens (you can dispense it with needle bottles, refillable felt or brush pens, or just dip an artist brush for example).
Gotta have some good tweezers to handle the parts too.
+1
Although the very specific shapes have their place, you can do a LOT with a couple of pair (say a #5 & #7 pattern in
SA material, which is anti-magnetic & anti-acid). So look for 5SA (or 5.SA/5-SA) for example on the tweezers itself. Watchmakers tend to use models designated by an
S which is magnetic and vulnerable to acids (these also tend to just have a number without any letter designation stamped or etched into the tweezers).
I'd suggest Pakistani made as a minimum if you can. Swiss is best, followed by Italian, Pakistani, and finally Chinese IME (there's also tweezers from Japan, Taiwan, and India). If money is really tight for example, VETUS is about the best of the Chinese brands from what I understand.
Given what I'm seeing for UK prices though, Swiss can be had for ~10GBP or less (8.66GBP for each pair linked) at Farnell under their Duratool brand
(
5-SA &
7-SA). BTW, these particular Duratool pairs are rebranded Ideal-Tek, which is as good as it gets IME (example of their
5-SA). Same exact pair, but at more than 2x the cost. BTW, Ideal-Tek ODM's the tweezers for Lindstrom and Belzer for example.
Sorting through all of the Duratool tweezers (P/N's that start with D00* = Swiss made), they have a
DURATOOL D00349 TWEEZER SET, SA, 5PCS kit for 35.57GBP.
So that makes these Duratool pairs one hell of a deal right now.
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