Armed with a cheap stencil, solder paste, tweezers, hot plate and packets of small SMD components the time had come to take the plunge and 'hot plate solder' the bare board to be able to finally test the design before committing to having a batch of PCBs professionally assembled. The result is shown in the attached image, pasted but only slightly heated.hence not yet reflowed. So all looks good however the eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that one or two components, critically U1, U2 and U4 are, slightly misaligned. Durin my efforts to correct this by reheating the board and nudging them into position, I accidently dropped the Assembly with disastrous consequences. Ah well, you can't win every time so if at first you don't suceeed then try again and maybe again,