Modding today's hardware often means moving or removing tiny surface mount components, and using a standard soldering iron feels about as effective as using a hammer to kill a fly. If buying an ...

For most of us, soldering electronics means soldering on “through hole components,” that are large and easy to handle. However, when machines build components, they use “surface mount components,” ...

Electronics components are steadily moving away from through hole parts to using surface mount technology (SMT) exclusively. While the small size of the SMT components can be intimidating, with a ...

[Scott] sent in his video how-to on surface mount soldering. The macro video quality is excellent, and the demo is great even if you’re already into SMD work. Everything can be done with fine solder, ...

Should folks building small numbers of circuit boards use surface-mount parts, or should they stick with through-hole components that are so much easier to handle and solder (not to mention see)?

At some stage you will have to work with surface-mount devices (SMDs) and solder them by hand. You can wait until you are forced to learn, or you can leap into the fray with gusto and abandon. At some ...