On 1/6/08, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: I had a job a few years back that involved a LOT of soldering SMT parts onto circuit boards. I had to put in a whole lot of 64-pin (think it was 64...) chips over the course of a summer, and I quickly found out my favorite/easiest method. It's best if you can work under a microscope; we had binocular microscopes that were perfect under low magnifications. After placing the board under the 'scope, I'd apply copius flux, then tack down two corners. Then I'd swap all the pins with flux again. Next, I'd take my rather fine-tipped soldering iron, get a blob of solder on the tip, and quickly swipe it down the pins along one side. Inspection would reveal that almost all the pins now had very nice fills and very few were bridged. Any bridges were very easy to fix, usually requiring just a quick swipe of the soldering iron. Basically, the biggest aids to doing this are having a decent microscope and a fine-tipped soldering iron. With those, you can easily solder in dozens of these guys. John -- Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn