Soldering Surface Mount Components

smd components on pcbI noticed that Richard, N4PBQ posted on his blog wondering how to solder surface mount components (SMD) like the capacitors included with the 1Watter.

For the online build-a-thon, I’m following Chuck’s lead of using the thru hole components, but I’ve had good luck soldering SMD devices by hand for other projects.

A good pair of tweezers and magnification are handy here.  You don’t have to spend a ton of money but a 10X Triplet Loupe or an Optivisor make life a lot easier.

Dave from the EEVblog did a nice video series on soldering.  It’s worth watching the whole series, but jump to about 6:50 in the video below for a quick tutorial on one way to deal with chip resistors and capacitors.