[hpsdr] RE Couple of questions on Building Hermes before diving

[Andrew]

Hi Rick,
As Don says, for the leadless ICs with a central pad you will need a heat plate to raise the temperature of the board and a hot air tool (one designed for the job, not a paint remover unless you are really brave!) for making the joints. This is how my board was done. Solder paste wasn't needed, just normal tinning of the pads plus a little extra for the central pads. You need to see them drop and float on their pads. The leaded components can be soldered with a decent quality fine tipped iron and some sort of magnifier, I used a microscope.
In terms of assembly sequence, I started with the linear regulators and tested them. Then I built up the dc-dc converter and tested that. Then the leadless ICs went down. Next the passives and leaded semiconductors, then the fpga and finally the connectors etc. All rather tedious but worth it!
Well that was my method, it worked well. Hope that helps, any more questions, please ask.
73's,
Andrew G4XZL
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