Once the main development of the circuit had been completed, first on a breadboard followed by a stripboard prototype I decided to produce a small batch of PBCs. At this point I did not know whether there was a market for this idea, I had never had PCBs produced professionally nor had I used SMD components or solder paste. I ordered 12 bare PCBs from OSHpark and set about assembling them.

The equipment used for those first boards was as basic as it comes but I learned a lot. Shown in the image is almost everything you need to assemble small numbers of PCBs, the only thing not shown is the heatgun I used to reflow the boards. My intention in this project is to look at each of the tools in this picture in turn and show how it's changed as I have gone from essentially a one-off batch of 12 to series production. We will be looking at, in no particular order;

Component tape holding
Solder deposition
PCB holding
Component pickup
Reflow

Along the way I'll try to touch on the lessons I've learned regarding PCB layout for easy hand assembly.