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SMD is in some respects a lit easier than using through-hole components. When making a board, you don't work with a mirror image, and you don't have holes to drill (or any where near as many)
However soldering requires either a different set of tools, or lots of fiddly technique.
My suggestion is that you get yourself a handful of cheap components, and design some boards that use them (no need to have them do anything) and learn how to design the boards and solder the components.
You can easily get a thousand resistors for a couple of bucks if you look around a bit.
I prefer to work with a reflow station, and you can get one for under a hundred bucks if you look around. If you take this route you also need to get solder paste and there are places that sell stuff that is of acceptable quality for (again) only a couple of bucks.
The expensive bit is really the reflow station. People have used hot air guns, frying pans, and toaster ovens, and probably other methods that I've not heard of. These other methods also demand the use of solder paste.
If you're using solder paste, you have to get the hang of laying it down. You only need a very little of it
However soldering requires either a different set of tools, or lots of fiddly technique.
My suggestion is that you get yourself a handful of cheap components, and design some boards that use them (no need to have them do anything) and learn how to design the boards and solder the components.
You can easily get a thousand resistors for a couple of bucks if you look around a bit.
I prefer to work with a reflow station, and you can get one for under a hundred bucks if you look around. If you take this route you also need to get solder paste and there are places that sell stuff that is of acceptable quality for (again) only a couple of bucks.
The expensive bit is really the reflow station. People have used hot air guns, frying pans, and toaster ovens, and probably other methods that I've not heard of. These other methods also demand the use of solder paste.
If you're using solder paste, you have to get the hang of laying it down. You only need a very little of it
I think that method is well designed to make surface mount work seem slow, difficult, and frustrating.
If you do it properly, you very soon come to realise that compared to surface mount, using through-hole components is slow, difficult, and frustrating.
If you do it properly, you very soon come to realise that compared to surface mount, using through-hole components is slow, difficult, and frustrating.
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