I&#x27;ve found that surface mount is more bark than bite, to be honest. Boards that&#x27;ll make it a pth device aren&#x27;t terribly much, and I&#x27;ve done tons of surface mount chips using the toaster oven technique. Even there, you can get a low end smd oven off ebay for not a terrible amount of money if&#x2F;when you want to do any sort of volume work. Hell, with my crappy fine motor skills, I&#x27;ve nuked more stuff with the soldering iron than I have with smd, so things definitely have changed on that front.