I did it.
I'll blog more about how it went down (very well!) tomorrow.
@wohali gratz on making the stencil work. i'm still afraid of trying paste..
@MightyPork it was SO EASY. I had the entire board done in under 15 minutes.
@wohali how did you reflow it? hot air or some oven?
@MightyPork Toaster oven with a controller: http://reflowster.com/
@wohali ahh that's neat! i think i'll try to build this with an old heating pad from a kettle (no toaster ovens around here, sadly...)
@MightyPork there's an electric skillet approach, too. I hear good things from friends about using them.
@wohali good to hear, this is basically how I plan to do it (need to read up on switching AC first)
@wohali Actually my biggest hurdle right now with some SMD is seeing the parts. Do you own a USB viewer or do you have the full stereo microscope?
@Dianora My vision is nearly perfect, just a correctable astigmatism in one eye. So I can see these 3216 resistors and capacitors just fine. I'll probably be OK down to 2012 and 1608 unaided.
But I do have an antique stereo microscope that I can use if necessary, a Bausch and Lomb Stereozoom 4 with an X-Y boom stand that I got from a warehouse liquidation. It's a bit misaligned and needs some TLC. Looks like you can get 'em for $100 on eBay if you hunt.
@wohali I missed out on a bunch of scopes years ago at a liquidation here. :-( I'll go look on epay since it's a PITA without.
@wohali sweeet