Yeah, they were ginormous in my scope as well but it was because I had the 20x eyepieces in, had to put in the 10x
I didn’t think about assembly order and followed your notes, I think for the next set of boards I’ll install U5 first, then the caps around it, especially C11. It was a little tight in there... I use a big tip as well, 1/4” Pace knife tip and it was, well, difficult.
Surprisingly, I had some issues with the EING solderability,
especially just on U1,2 and 3, after the first board gave me fits, I pre-tinned the pads and then cleaned off with solder-wick, then it was easy. I also had issues with the thermal vias on the gnd pins of those chips, had trouble getting things to flow, probably just my tip temp being too low. Maybe that was the issue altogether, dunno, never had issues like that before with that finish.
All in all, it was very rewarding and I guess I saved about $300, all said and done. Just need to order the balance of the parts and finish the other two boards, have plenty of time these days as I’m on a week, off a week at work until the end of June. Damn virus. Half salary too. But, there’s no excuse not to get some projects done. Time, I’ve got, right now.
Edit: now that I look at the photos of the boards, I can see where I lifted bits of the solder mask on U1/2/3 on the 5V board which was the first board I did. That was from all the horsing around with wick trying get a good flow on the pins.