So in keeping with the age old adage "if you want something done well, do it yourself" I have assembled the tools Ill need.
Soldering SMD parts almost always requires either a reflow oven or a hot plate. There is a $300 electronic reflow oven on ebay. Chinese made, works and doesnt take up too much space. However on youtube and on reddit various individuals have expressed more success using hotplates to reflow solder. Some even use electric skillets and an infrared temperature monitor
I purchased a $100 electronic hotplate on Ebay (YADGONG 946C from a seller in California with two) with enough surface area to handle an 8x8 sized board. Mine is 7.6 x 5.4. I also bought an IR temperature sensor for around $12 ... shipping included for both
Of course I might have need to do rework and I definitely need to hand solder some through hole parts on the board. With that in mind I bought the 2 in 1 SRS 852D+ reflow soldering station. This cost me about $61 on Ebay shipping included
Finally and possibly the most important tool on an Engineer/Inventors lab (outside of a digital multimeter) is an analog scope. My favorite Engineer vlogger Dave Johnson (eevblog on youtube) recommends ditching the fancy usb/pc scopes and getting a nice dual channel analog oscilloscope for starters. So I bought this Tektronix 464 100Mhz Dual Channel scope on Ebay for about $129 with $30 shipping from Rochester, NY.
Various other small tools like hand pump to lift and place SMT, soldering tools and tweezers, rework wire, solder paste, solder flux and enough parts to make a prototype and perhaps an initial run of 10 has been purchased on Ebay, CircuitSpecialists and Mouser
Once the solder paste and boards arrive I am good to go.
