Well, I did get one of the cheapo kits today.
Brace yourself, it's ugly.
I can see it's doable. The chips I have had delivered are SSOP-24 and a little more forbidding looking.
Also, since you mention QFN and VQFN, when I am looking for DC/DC converters that supply both a boosted +12V and -12V for my audio project they all seem so be absolutely tiny little MSOP or VQFN chips
I suppose MSOP is probably achievable? What do you think?
Oh... I do have a bottle of Isopropanol in the post and a small brush to clean things up.
Question... how do you stop the little "nipples" of solder plucking up when you remove the iron?
... and yes, the kits comes with a SOP-16 chip with 16 legs and... a SOP-16 area with 14 pads. WTF?