group buy for homebrew CPUs?

[der Mouse]

>> Admittedly, that could be a lack of tools.  Given a stereo loupe,
>> pantographic waldos, and a really fine-point soldering iron, it
>> quite possibly wouldn't be all that tough.  But those ain't cheap,
>> and I think needing significantly more expensive equipment counts as
>> "harder".
> Basically, you tack down the corners of the chip, and then draw the
> chisel tip across the pins, along with the solder.  [...]

> Trying to solder the pins individually, and avoiding bridging them
> (like if you didn't use enough flux) is a complete pain in the ass,
> and just a bad idea.

This sounds as though you're talking strictly about soldering them to a
printed-circuit board.  If so, that's a lose right there, compared to
DIPs, if you can't connect to them (without equipment prohibitively
expensive for hobbyist use) except via a PCB.

> Passives are a bit trickier, but if you use a hemostat or pair of
> tweezers to hold onto it, that shouldn't be too difficult either

Components with small "pin" count and large "pins", like passives or
discrete transistors, are comparatively easy, yes.  But still not
*nearly* as easy as the corresponding components designed for
through-hole use (and readily usable for other, eg, point-to-point,
use, which SM components generally aren't; while for "easy" components
it's not all that hard to solder leads onto them, at the very least
it's an extra step, and in general I'd say it qualifies as "harder").

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