There are worse.. The one terahz is using would be a 9.5 out of 10 part. Whereas I'd rate that TSSOP as about a 7. A thru-hole resistor a 1.
It's sort of weird, because I've been soldering things for 3 decades now (I built my first computer from components, a Sinclair ZX81...) but I find it *easier* now to do SMT than to do through-hole components. With the amount of solder I end up using on through-hole parts, I find it's more common to get mistakes. Perhaps it's just me or perhaps it's that I mix through-hole with SMT and never seem to leave sufficient separation between the two
A 0.8mm pitch chip is pretty trivial - liberally flux the pads, place one corner, place opposite corner, do the rest of the pins. To solder a pin, add a small solder-ball to iron tip, touch tip of iron to tip of the pin and the solder will wick onto the pin. Repeat. If you position the board to suit your soldering angle, a 48-pin chip is done in ~2 mins. I actually do them like this rather than use the soldering oven these days, although I'll use the oven for things like BGA [grin].
For smaller than 0.8mm I do tend to use the wicking method, but I've had the wick stick to the pins before, and then you can lose a pin trying to remove the wick.
Simple SMT resistors/capacitors are equally easy: flux the pads then tin one of the pad with solder, use tweezers to place the part on top of the tinned pad, touch the iron to the tinned area and gently push down with the tweezers, remove iron and wait a second or so. Then just add a blob of solder to the iron again and touch the other side of the component. Done.
I will mention the thing that makes this really, really easy - even though it will completely destroy any possibility of social interaction I may ever have with any of you
Get one of
these. Possibly the dorkiest pieces of apparel ever invented, but it really helps. The visor attaches comfortably with a screw-type headband, and flips up/down easily for when you want it in/out-of your way. It's a fixed magnification (2.5x) , so you do have to position your head rather than zoom in (those visors are far more expensive...) but we have these things called 'muscles' that allow us to move our 'skeleton' into the correct position
The downside of the fixed magnification is that it can get uncomfortable if you're using it for long periods (a few hours) but these sorts of projects are nowhere near that sort of soldering time. I did run into this when making an entire suite of sensors for my own ethernet-based controller. YMMV.
If you're doing fine-line soldering, I'd also recommend getting some of Sparkfun's
"special blend"" - I was skeptical but it really does seem to be easier to use than the normal stuff.
Ok, enough with the public-service announcements. No, I don't own stock in, or have any interest in either of the above companies (or anyone else remotely connected to them), these are just items I've found useful.
Simon.
