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It's a QFP, not a BGA. Go get yourself a magnifying lamp, some solder braid, and some paste. It's really not that hard (unless you're soldering a lot).


Yep. Eminently hand solderable. Surface mount is self aligning, in that all you have to do is heat things up, apply the right amount of solder and the surface tension of the molten solder does the rest, making sure the solder goes in the right places. The key is that everything must be spotlessly clean, so the surface tension of the solder is not disturbed by contaminants.

In the absence of a hot air of infrared source, use a flat chisel tip about 3mm wide and fine solder to do a QFP.

Align the QFP on the pads. Alignment is crucial, since by not heating all pins at once you lose the self aligning of packages aspect of the surface mount process. Maybe tack diagonally opposite pins with a little solder, or lightly hold it in position. If you are right handed, have the iron in your right hand and solder in your left. Have one side of the QFP facing you. Start at the left hand corner and (if you are right handed), sweep from left to right, keeping the flat chisel in contact with the part of the pins, trailing across so it is in contact with the pads. Simultaneously feed the solder into the junction of the pins and iron with your left. It takes some practise to get the speed of the sweep and the rate of solder feed correct, so getting the correct temperature and amount of solder. Get it right and it takes a couple of seconds to solder one side of a QFP, with a single sweep. Turn the board 90 degrees and repeat for the other three sides.

If you get solder bridges, reheat, maybe using a little flux or removing some solder if there is two much. If things are clean and there isn't too much solder, surface tension will "magically" pull the solder from the bridge back onto the pins.

I've used the above technique down to 0.5mm pitch.




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