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I ordered an inexpensive DIY SMD project from Amazon. (No, I am not getting paid to do this post.) Here is the "before" photo:
Gikfun radar project still packaged
The instructions look easy enough to follow, with a component list, schematics, and some tips and other instructions in fairly decent English.
Gikfun radar project instructions
To get started, today I installed the seven 1k resistors. The solder blobs on two or three of the resistors didn't look so great, but I started to get the hang of it after that.
Gikfun radar project after a few resistors
I was a bit confused at first how to get the tiny resistors to stay in the correct position while I did the soldering. I found though that once I developed good technique on positioning the solder tip and the stick of solder, the resistor more or less gets sucked into the correct position on the pad. In any case, several of the resistors turned out looking nice, and all of them measured the correct resistance across the pads, so I'm off to a good start.
I do not think the soldering tip I have is technically an SMT tip, but it is a small, curved, pointy tip that works well enough if you place it intelligently on the pad.
