Starting out with SMD

[egasimus]

Somebody told me I could easily use SMD components on this sort of protoboard. Genius! Now I'm once again firing up my pirated copy of Eagle and drawing combined through-hole and SMD layouts. There's hours of fun in this!

Of course, now I want to build an amazingly compact thing or two in this manner, and I'd like to source some parts. First things first, do you think it would better to use 1206 or 0805 parts in my case? Does 0805 possibly have the added benefit of being able to squeeze the ends of two components onto the same pad.

And, where do I get the best quantity and variety of those tiny buggers? The best I've found is this.

[crane]

I would suggest at first using 1210. Just to get used to it. If you are good at soldering - start with 0805.
If you have the proper equipment SMD is easier and faster to solder and desolder than through hole components.
Although I have no problems soldering olmast any smd package since I do it every day at work there is still a huge con doing this. I started building pedals to use high quality components like metal film capacitors. Haven't seen them in smt. That's why I still mainly do th boards.

[Jdansti]

The eBay deal looks pretty good. I just ordered a handful of smd parts from Tayda along with my regular order just to see if I could build a teensy noisy cricket amp. I'll still have to use a couple of TH electrolytics, though.   I'm interested to see just how much difference the SMD non-polar caps will make.

[Gurner]

I would suggest at first using 1210. Just to get used to it. If you are good at soldering - start with 0805.

For proto'ing & production I only work with 1206 (passive) & SOIC / SOT23 for actives ...this isn't because I'm poor at soldering & avoid going smaller, it's because it's more difficult to fabricate the PCBs at home for MSOP 0805 etc (not saying it can't be done,. but I've had mixed result with etching...and now that I'm using a modest CNC machine for isolation milling & it's certainly too tall an order to go to 0.5mm pitch for my machine).

Also, be aware that SMD components in 1210 are somewhat more difficult to source in variety here in the UK. (I guess not many folks use'em nowadays)


I remember the first order i placed for 0805 passives....I soiled myself when I saw how small they were, so be sure to have some air freshener handy when  you open the package.

[crane]

I would suggest at first using 1210. Just to get used to it. If you are good at soldering - start with 0805.

For proto'ing & production I only work with 1206 (passive) & SOIC / SOT23 for actives ...this isn't because I'm poor at soldering & avoid going smaller, it's because it's more difficult to fabricate the PCBs at home for MSOP 0805 etc (not saying it can't be done,. but I've had mixed result with etching...and now that I'm using a modest CNC machine for isolation milling & it's certainly too tall an order to go to 0.5mm pitch for my machine).

Also, be aware that SMD components in 1210 are somewhat more difficult to source in variety here in the UK. (I guess not many folks use'em nowadays)


I remember the first order i placed for 0805 passives....I soiled myself when I saw how small they were, so be sure to have some air freshener handy when  you open the package.

1206 is what i meant - not 1210
Good point about making the pcb.
When you've soldered 0201 - 0805 doesn't seem that small

[egasimus]

Good point indeed; Here's a similar 1206 offer, but I'm reluctant about buying it - it's a bit more expensive (might have to go through the hell of customs; and after paying 50BGN for something that was free, I really don't wanna). Can't a 0805 be soldered to suitably made 1206 pads, though?

[Gurner]

Good point indeed; Here's a similar 1206 offer, but I'm reluctant about buying it - it's a bit more expensive (might have to go through the hell of customs; and after paying 50BGN for something that was free, I really don't wanna). Can't a 0805 be soldered to suitably made 1206 pads, though?

I'd imagine 0805 sized pads could just about be etched ok with DIY etching (btw, for all I've not tried, I reckon 0805 won't fit onto 1206 pads - they're too small & will likely not reach each pad) ...but you'd normally marry such small (805) passive components with the equivalent sized ICs (therefore not normally SOIC, SOT-23....but smaller DFN, MSOP etc packages....those pitches are too small for most DIY etching facilities). I'd recommend you just go for 1206...far easier to etch the pads, rather easy to handle & solder.

re customs & import costs.....I'm in the UK & that amount wouldn't incur any costs (I can't imagine many countries where it would)

[IvIark]

I got a pack of these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350477019143

and a pack of the 0805 resistors and capacitors, and I agree with Gurner.  The 0805's seem horrendously small for me, I can't believe that some people will happily work with the 0402 form, they must be insane.  1206 are still small but they seem much more reasonable to use for a through-hole DIY guy like me. 

[egasimus]

Ok, so 1206 it is, and that's what I'm gonna be putting in my Eagle layouts. I'll try to source some individual values locally first before buying the res+cap pack I posted above... Thanks everyone!

[cloudscapes]

I'm slowly taking the plunge this year. My projects are becoming icnreasingly complex and I stubbornly refuse to move to larger boxes. 

Just ICs, votlage regulators and a few other things for now. I'm still using through-hole passives. SOIC is pretty easy and can be done without batting an eye. SSOP is pretty tight, but you can do the swipe technique if you have a solder mask. Douse in flux, swipe solder on a row, then suck up the excess with solder wick.

I'm gonna start with 0603 passives for this one dev board in mind.

[egasimus]

That's nice For me, it's the other way around - I find it pretty convenient having through-hole ICs + surface-mount passives. I've found a source of stripboard where I live, so I might just pioneer a new technique - hybrid SMD/TH stripboard building...

[cloudscapes]

That's nice For me, it's the other way around - I find it pretty convenient having through-hole ICs + surface-mount passives. I've found a source of stripboard where I live, so I might just pioneer a new technique - hybrid SMD/TH stripboard building...

Not really an option for me these days, 100pin microcontrollers and 44pin parallel RAM ICs rarely come in DIP.

[egasimus]

That's nice For me, it's the other way around - I find it pretty convenient having through-hole ICs + surface-mount passives. I've found a source of stripboard where I live, so I might just pioneer a new technique - hybrid SMD/TH stripboard building...

Not really an option for me these days, 100pin microcontrollers and 44pin parallel RAM ICs rarely come in DIP.

Yeah, once you get to that point, you don't really have another option, do you