State of SMT in the hobbyist's lab

[Alex]

With the rise of the modern hacker/maker/tinkerer/hobbyist, I was wondering to what extent has surface mount technology penetrated into home labs in general.

Do you guys run away when you see a board with SMTs that needs repair or, on the other hand of the spectrum, design all your boards for 100% SMT?

How do you feel about SMT in the hands of hobbyists? What if we woke up tomorrow and THT never existed? 

[ConnorGames]

This would make a neat poll. I used to avoid surface mount, thinking it was too small for me to ever solder! Nevertheless, I started to use SMT about a year ago, and love it. It is so much easier not to need to flip the board over and worry about parts falling out, and SMT also allows much smaller and cheaper prototype PCB's. I have gone as small as .5mm pitch QFN's with hot-air reflow and stencils, and .65mm TSSOP / 0603 passives by hand.

[c4757p]

I prototype analog circuits in PTH because I have a wider assortment of PTH passives - the assortment kits are very cheap and I have piles and piles of them left from when I didn't do any SMD. It's also easier to make bodgey changes, though of course you can bodge PTH parts onto an SMD board. But I design all final boards in SMD and do digital stuff all in SMD as well, including prototype.

The only advantages of PTH that I can see are:
1. You can assemble a PTH circuit when you are surprisingly close to legally blind, and
2. You can muddle along soldering PTH with a $10 Radio Shack Soldering Shovel and no skill, even if it will look pathetic.

[marshallh]

I design all my stuff for paste + reflow... yes even lead free. You can do bga at home if just do some research and use your head (read a few process papers and adapt to what you have)

[andyturk]

I reflow SMT projects at home using a skillet. The nice thing is that my "library" of passives (books of 0603 parts) takes up less space than a loaf of bread. In some cases, I'll have a stencil made by ohararp, but I generally just dab paste on my boards with a needle mounted in an old mechanical pencil. I've also gotten pretty good at using solder wick. 

I've done a few projects recently using 0.4mm LGA/QFN footprints (accelerometers mostly). Those things are twice as tricky because there are no exposed leads. If the solder isn't even across all the pads you can get shorts (if there's too much) or open connections if the chip ends up floating too high off the board.

For the super small footprints, I apply the smallest amount of paste I can manage and then reflow the paste with hot air on the naked board (i.e., no chip). The idea is to get nice even bumps of solder on the pads. Next, I clean off any excess solder with an iron, and remove scrub off the used flux. Fresh flux goes on the board and I place the chip and use hot air from below to reflow the bumps. It is an ordeal, but it gets the job done if you're patient.

[Alex]

Poll added - hope it is extensive enough 

[strobot]

... and I actively try to use the smallest packages as they are electrically better and look cooler

This answer is a bit restrictive.  I prefer SMT over through hole and have the ability to assembly 0603/QFN, but 9/10 times I'm going to choose a SOIC over a QFN package if it is available for the IC I'm interested in.  SOIC packages are much easier to probe and debug, and are more standardized for things like opamps and MOSFETs.  I'll only go for QFN if board space is critical.

[Alex]

... and I actively try to use the smallest packages as they are electrically better and look cooler

This answer is a bit restrictive.  I prefer SMT over through hole and have the ability to assembly 0603/QFN, but 9/10 times I'm going to choose a SOIC over a QFN package if it is available for the IC I'm interested in.  SOIC packages are much easier to probe and debug, and are more standardized for things like opamps and MOSFETs.  I'll only go for QFN if board space is critical.

There are way too many scenarios to capture in a poll, but hopefully we will get a flavour if enough people vote.
I think a descriptive answer like the one you and others gave is better.

[Psi]

The two reasons i use SMT at home are..
 SMT is faster (solder paste + oven or even hot air gun).
 SMT is smaller (more cost effective due to using a smaller PCB and having a smaller product overall)

[amyk]

Other - yes I do BGA and even CSP. A microscope and good tweezers is essential, along with a hot air station, but other than that (and the occasional lost part) I think it's not too bad... then again, I've played with bare die so my sense of scale is probably quite distorted.

[Alana]

I'm stuck with home made boards and i haven't mastered 2 sided boards yet. And this means that its often better to use THT because i can use space under bigger/longer components [resistors, diodes, some caps] to squeeze some traces. Thats why its mostly THT but if i can get away with SMT caps or resistors i use them because its less holes to drill.

[Mike S]

I tend to use only SMT parts with home made boards and a silkscreen solder mask, but I feel this sort of holds me back since I haven't had a reason to learn the proper way to set up a board file for a PCB house.

[M. András]

I tend to use only SMT parts with home made boards and a silkscreen solder mask, but I feel this sort of holds me back since I haven't had a reason to learn the proper way to set up a board file for a PCB house.

its easy if the cad tool have a proper cam software built in. hit generate gerbers and you select the layers and almost done most of the other stuffs meant for more advanced things

[G7PSK]

THT & SMT whats that. I use square copper onto which I wind silk thread and go point to point with nice right angle bends on a piece of ebony or slate. I find that its much easier to lift components with a gantry or fork truck.

[Alex]

THT & SMT whats that. I use square copper onto which I wind silk thread and go point to point with nice right angle bends on a piece of ebony or slate. I find that its much easier to lift components with a gantry or fork truck.

Typical ham radio extremist! 

[8086]

I actively use SMT parts because they are smaller and can be reflow soldered.

With the dawn of services like seeed and itead's PCB manufacture service, you can lay out a SMT board and not have to deal with TH at all.

I only use TH for connectors (and breadboarding) really nowadays.

[Dave]

I try to avoid through-hole as much as possible, mainly because I like to etch my own prototypes, and drilling holes is an unnecessary hassle. I am not the biggest fan of QFN, but I can work with them. I avoid BGA, for obvious reasons.
My favorites would probably be QFP and SSOP. I like my resistors and caps in 0603.

[mtdoc]

I'm pretty new to hobby electronics and have yet to dive into SMTs much, but it seems to me that besides mastering the required soldering skills, the other disadvantage of using SMT for hobby work is the required use of PCBs.   

For prototyping there's bread-boarding that requires TH of course - but also with so many options --  using perf, strip or proto board, dead bug or Manhattan style available to build with TH,  it doesn't make much sense for many (not all) one-off projects to go to the effort of PCB design and production. Does it?

[Fsck]

proto in through hole, finish in smt, unless it's a one off in which I might just leave it in a haphazard through hole.

[mtdoc]

proto in through hole, finish in smt, unless it's a one off in which I might just leave it in a haphazard through hole.

But that's my point.  Almost all hobbyist work is going to be a one-off - isn't it?

[Fsck]

proto in through hole, finish in smt, unless it's a one off in which I might just leave it in a haphazard through hole.

But that's my point.  Almost all hobbyist work is going to be a one-off - isn't it?

sometimes you make more than one, or you want one absolutely minimalistic item. it's just it'd take forever to write out.
other times, I'm just too lazy to have to work out an smt board and just rig up through holes on a perf/strip/universal pcb.

[Flávio V]

My SMD component history is very short because i only started using then 2 months ago, was a SOIC, some 0603s, SMB diode, SMD lytics and i absolutely loved it, much easier to solder than hole components, smaller, cheaper, more professional looking, easier to lay a 2 layer board with medium/high density.

After soldering a bit SMD, now i can't solder that well regular hole components, so hard.

[M. András]

best part of the reflow method when you place the little componens the paste will pull it in place when yo heat it. was really fun seeing those little lpfak nxp fets float into their place and the excess formed a little ball outside stencil rolled up a bit its mylar or similar material not ssteel its damn expensive

[hans]

I work in SMT as much as possible. 0402, 0.5mm QFP/SSOP, no problem. I have not yet tried QFN or BGA, because I don't have a hot air station at home.

I have developed a hatred towards 0.1" pin headers, because they are SOOO huge. However, because other connectors I look at usually require like crimp tools or not interchangeable I keep them around.

I have a limited amount of through hole stuff at home for breadboards and veroboard, as well as SMT breakout boards. This way I make a revision zero version (if it's not too much work) and order the first version in SMT.
However, for most digital stuff I am mostly confident it will work and order it in SMT right away.

[strangelovemd12]

I refrained from the poll, since I can't really identify with any of the options, but I'll throw my 2 cents in.

As someone who is just jumping into proper electronics (used to be into electrics, as it were) the first thing I noticed when I started browsing around and gathering the state of things was that there is no point even trying if I wasn't going to face up to SMT.  I figured there was no use learning everything required for even basic circuit and project design if I was going to limit myself by the many constraints of all/mostly TH designs.  Parts availability, cost, size, heat dissipation, etc. made SMT a clear necessity, so I jumped in head first. 

SOIC packages are nothing major, since I have good eyes and no hand tremors.   Resistors down to 0603 are fine, but I give them more space on the board than any competent person would so that I can more easily avoid bridging.  I think moving into 0402s is only a matter of using up my 0603 stock, and convincing myself that buying 0603s and up on the grounds that it would make building a pick n place a whole lot easier is not completely sane.  I keep a couple 80pin 0.5mm QFPs on the corner of my desk and occasionally glare at them.  I know they mock me when I sleep.  My goal was to have one in a working circuit by the end of the year, but I am on track to fail since I have eased up on the "basic skills" learning curve in favor of applying what I've learned so far.  I.E. dicking around with basic circuits and figuring out what I did wrong.

I really advise anyone getting into electronics to jump on the SMT wagon from the start.  It is only intimidating until you've soldered your first couple chips.  Then it's mostly fun.  And cursing.

[strangelovemd12]

I'm pretty new to hobby electronics and have yet to dive into SMTs much, but it seems to me that besides mastering the required soldering skills, the other disadvantage of using SMT for hobby work is the required use of PCBs.   

For prototyping there's bread-boarding that requires TH of course - but also with so many options --  using perf, strip or proto board, dead bug or Manhattan style available to build with TH,  it doesn't make much sense for many (not all) one-off projects to go to the effort of PCB design and production. Does it?

There are some boards for SMT proto, IIRC user mikeselectricstuff sells some nice ones out of England.  There are also a ton of breakout boards for pretty much every package on eBay.  With a 90* header they actually make breadboarding incredibly easy and tidy.  If you plan on being in the hobby for long you're going to need to learn SMT anyway, or you wont be able to use any modern chips.  Just jump in.  The water's fine and the sharks only nibble.

[mtdoc]

There are some boards for SMT proto, IIRC user mikeselectricstuff sells some nice ones out of England.  There are also a ton of breakout boards for pretty much every package on eBay.  With a 90* header they actually make breadboarding incredibly easy and tidy.  If you plan on being in the hobby for long you're going to need to learn SMT anyway, or you wont be able to use any modern chips.  Just jump in.  The water's fine and the sharks only nibble.

Thanks. Yeah - I've just recently started using a few breakout boards for use with SMT only chips.  I've seem the SMT prototyping  boards but haven't found the need.

 I've no doubt that eventually I'll dabble in building with SMT caps and resistors on PCBs.  I realize that for some projects there are real advantages.   The thing is, one of the reasons I enjoy hobby electronics is the physical hands-on work of building things.  The idea of spending more time in front of  a computer to do PCB  design does not appeal much to me.  I just recently watched Chris Gammels short youtube series on using KiCad for designing a simple Blinkly PCB board - doesn't look like much fun to me. I already spend way to much screen time for my day job - not to mention reading EEV blog...

[ThomasDK]

I use surface mount as much as possible. I'd rather spend my time soldering and troubleshooting, than drilling all those pesky holes 

If I need to run multiple traces under a resistor, I use standard PTH resistors, but I change the pads and surface mount them  O0

[free_electron]

you need a few other options

- i handsolder 0201 without blinking...

- what the fuck are thru-hole parts ? something that predates the stone age ?

- the original integrated circuit package was intended for surface mounting (SN501 chip from TI) and introduced in the late 50's ... so why did we spend 50 years mucking about with something else .... it was always meant to be surface mount !

i'd have to select all the above options.

[Phaedrus]

Thru-hole can be useful on a crowded board; you can use your resistors as junctions to make routing easier. Sort of a niche application though. I only use thru-hole for quick bodgy perfboard prototypes.

[amyk]

you need a few other options

- i handsolder 0201 without blinking...

- what the fuck are thru-hole parts ? something that predates the stone age ?

- the original integrated circuit package was intended for surface mounting (SN501 chip from TI) and introduced in the late 50's ... so why did we spend 50 years mucking about with something else .... it was always meant to be surface mount !

i'd have to select all the above options.

How about some hand-soldered 01005.

[SLJ]

I work on all three, pre circuit board equipment, through hole, and now SMD.  I just set up a second station just for microsoldering with new equipment.  It's a little hard doing SMD work with the old soldering guns and stations I use on the vintage gear.

[Psi]

[chrisc]

THT & SMT whats that. I use square copper onto which I wind silk thread and go point to point with nice right angle bends on a piece of ebony or slate. I find that its much easier to lift components with a gantry or fork truck.

That kind of reminds me of verowire. Cleaning out the garage a few months ago and came across a few vero projects I did back in the late 70's. I still have my vero kit stuffed in a drawer somewhere.

Anyone else out there remember using verowire?

[SeanB]

Did not buy the system but have used enamelled copper wire to do wiring on a few boards, mostly for mods or to use small SMT components or to connect to existing small PCB's like watch boards.

[IanJ]

If I'm making a PCB in my home w/shop then it's 95% SMT, usually 0805/SOIC/SSOP.
Looks far nicer than THP, and you get that good feeling when you pull a board from the reflow oven......."tada!".

Downside with SMT is I'm nearly 50 and my close-up vision isn't as good as it was, i.e. I can't get my face right up against a board like I used to be able to when troubleshooting.......however, it's bearable and I'll use a magnifier if I have to.

Ian.

[nukie]

SMT all the way, its less of everything, less solder, no lead trimming, less board space, less storage space, less weight. Thru hole for education purposes and bulk items that require secure attachment

[ampdoctor]

I can deal with SMT but I'd rather not under most conditions. However, for prototypes and things I expect to fiddle with a lot I'll often gull wing or fully splay the leads on my through hole parts and leave larger E-lytics, relays, etc as through hole components. This seems to be the best of both worlds for me at least. Now I have far fewer holes to drill, I don't have to mess around with losing, reading, or even identifying microscopically small parts, storage of redundant components in different package sizes, dealing with reflow ovens, storage of solder paste or any number of other annoying elements. And if for whatever reason the chain of custody of something I built is ever broken, I can be pretty sure that whoever has it will be able to work on it or get it worked on easily.

[Alex]

Downside with SMT is I'm nearly 50 and my close-up vision isn't as good as it was, i.e. I can't get my face right up against a board like I used to be able to when troubleshooting.......however, it's bearable and I'll use a magnifier if I have to.
Ian.

Good point - I wonder to what extent vision/handling makes SMT too difficult to work with for the broader 30-50 age group, to the point where it might affect a purchasing decision. Say for example you are looking for a guitar amplifier kit. Would SMT put you off? I see there is a tiny fraction that voted for I cannot/do not want to use SMT.

[briandorey]

I started working with SMT components approx 18 months ago and now use them daily, mostly 0805, SOIC and TSOP packages. Most are placed by hand using a vac placement machine we built as placing with tweezers was proving too difficult!

The attached photo shows a new more compact version of the machine before we fitted a base to hold the PCBs

[Galaxyrise]

After years of working with THP and wire-wrap, I finally got tired of not being able to fix anything modern.  My biggest problem at 58 is my eyesight, so I found a 7-40X binocular zoom microscope and that put me back in business. 

Which did you get?

[Po6ept]

After years of working with THP and wire-wrap, I finally got tired of not being able to fix anything modern.  My biggest problem at 58 is my eyesight, so I found a 7-40X binocular zoom microscope and that let me tackle anything with exposed leads.

It's odd, but looking through the microscope I find that my hands are far less shaky than when looking through jeweler's glasses or a magnifying glass.  Something in the visual feedback and the apparent huge size of the parts and the iron tip makes the process much easier than I thought it would be.  I highly recommend a microscope, especially if you can set it up with a rack and pinion to adapt to different workpiece thicknesses.  I'd like to try a USB microscope and monitor but haven't found one yet that works. 

[Po6ept]

After years of working with THP and wire-wrap, I finally got tired of not being able to fix anything modern.  My biggest problem at 58 is my eyesight, so I found a 7-40X binocular zoom microscope and that put me back in business. 

Which did you get?

Sorry for any confusion in the posting, but I only just joined the forum and decided to start off using a different user name.

I found a used American Optical Stereo Star AO 570 0.7x to 4.2x on a stand that the previous owner made.  It has a miniature fluorescent ring light built onto it.  He did a really nice job putting it together - much nicer than I could have done with my metalworking skills.  My only complaint is that I have to remove the PCB from a radio before I can work on it.  I need to improve the stand and make the travel longer to accommodate the case thickness of the workpiece.

[MatCat]

I personally prefer SMD myself, I find it quite a bit easier to work with (Yes, easier then PTH), cheaper, and smaller overall end design.  Generally I do most of my design in 0805, but go to 0603 or even 0402 when I need too, all can easily be done by hand, though I do prefer solder paste for SMD instead of traditional solder, but either way is quite doable easily.  It takes me WAY longer to do a PTH DIP package then say a SOIC or TSSOP, if doing it by hand with an iron a quick bridge across the pins and a quick run with wick works amazingly well and fast. 

[chrisc]

Good point - I wonder to what extent vision/handling makes SMT too difficult to work with for the broader 30-50 age group, to the point where it might affect a purchasing decision. Say for example you are looking for a guitar amplifier kit. Would SMT put you off? I see there is a tiny fraction that voted for I cannot/do not want to use SMT.

I'll venture a perhaps surprising opinion here.

As a result of an eye inflammation I had in my younger years, I had cataracts and consequently had both natural lenses replaced with artificial ones (aka interocular lenses). One thing about these lenses is that you completely lose the ability to focus as they are not flexible (like natural lenses are). This is basically the same thing that happens as you get older (the muscles in the eye get weaker and limit the ability to focus). In addition I am in my 50's already. So, I have the same sort of focus issues as someone who is quite a bit older.

Despite that, I have recently started doing some hand SMT assembly and find that I now prefer it to traditional board work for anything that has more than 20-30 components. Here's why:

I use a head-mounted magnifier most of the time and a loupe for close-up inspection. With SMT assembly I can have all the components in a set of little clip-cases (http://dx.com/p/4580) right next to the board and thus don't need to shift my attention very far away from the board (meaning typically I can keep the head-mounted lenses over my eyes). Also there's no handling of the board to flip it over etc. I can pretty easily handle 0402's this way; e.g. I built the board below by hand recently doing exactly this. [Yes it's a bit wobbly in places and needs a clean, but it works:]

With traditional parts a complex board will have components placed all around me and I'd be constantly having to switch glasses to look between the board and the shelves.

Putting it another way: once you lose the ability to focus, to shift your view from something close to something further away you need to either use bifocals or progressive lenses, or have several different sets of glasses with different focal lengths.

The issue with bifocal/progressive lenses is it forces you to look in a particular direction (or to tilt your head in an uncomfortable way) to focus on something that isn't where the lens would naturally look. I detest this as it leads to a sore neck or eyes.

The other way is then to have several sets of glasses, which is my solution. However if wearing the head-mounted magnifiers I can get away without glasses and when I flip the magnifier up I can see the clip-box well enough to be able to read the labels and extract the components I need without having to physically swap glasses.

Of course there is a down-side: it requires a steady hand and some preparation to do the assembly, but nevertheless I know from experience that assembling a larger, through-hole version of the board shown here by hand would definitely take me longer than it does for the SMT one.

Of course for others the situation may be different; this is just the point of view of one person.

[chrisc]

Did not buy the system but have used enamelled copper wire to do wiring on a few boards, mostly for mods or to use small SMT components or to connect to existing small PCB's like watch boards.

Even today I find the verowire is occasionally handy for little patches or board mods because it's fine enough to go through almost any via plus you don't need to strip it (the insulation evaporates when soldered). However you need to have proper ventilation when soldering it because of the gases released from said evaporation .

[andyturk]

Other - yes I do BGA and even CSP. A microscope and good tweezers is essential, along with a hot air station, but other than that (and the occasional lost part) I think it's not too bad... then again, I've played with bare die so my sense of scale is probably quite distorted.

There are some chips I'd like to play with, but they have 0.4mm BGA/CSP footprints. How would you manage something like that in a home lab?

Is there a "cheap" way to have via-in-pad boards made in prototype quantities?

[M. András]

Other - yes I do BGA and even CSP. A microscope and good tweezers is essential, along with a hot air station, but other than that (and the occasional lost part) I think it's not too bad... then again, I've played with bare die so my sense of scale is probably quite distorted.

There are some chips I'd like to play with, but they have 0.4mm BGA/CSP footprints. How would you manage something like that in a home lab?

Is there a "cheap" way to have via-in-pad boards made in prototype quantities?

ive ordered some boards from itead and seed, they didnt care about the numbers of vias i had enough in 5x5cm connecting planes and most of them was in smd pads dpak and nxp lfpak footprints with 0.5mmholes, they state mininum drill size is 0.3mm it maybe still doable but i would sware the amount of solder on the ball would be enough cos of the via