You don't say which SMD devices you want to work with. For BGAs, you'll
need a very expensive piece of equipment (to say nothing of the area it
is in) and such things can be handled for you by a contract
manufacturer (although it won't be cheap).
If you wish to place / move / solder parts with lead pitches in the
range of 0.5mm and up (plus passives in such things as SOT23 and 0402
packages), you'll need at a minimum a decent bench mounted lighted
magnifier (easily commercially available) although a lab microscope
with a built in light underneath is preferable. These come with a
number of options - you should get the 2x, 4x and 8x magnifiers at
least.
For soldering, get a decent solder station designed for the task
(again, there are many commercially available) - these usually come
with 3 or 4 pieces of soldering equipment such as soldering tweezers, a
fine point iron, a hot air pump (with a needle nozzle iron) and other
such accoutrements.
For the solder, get 0.7mm multicore or smaller. Bench soldering usually
works best with 60/40 Sn/Pb although if you are a purist you can use
63/37 eutectic solder. If you do, make sure you don't let the iron get
too hot.
Oh - and very steady hands.
Cheers
PeteS
