Wouldn't you just know it...?

I received 5 x FT232RL chips in the post today from RS (cost £2.40 each instead of the £8.00 I paid for one on a breakout board). I carefully positioned one onto my not-so-brilliantly etched board and got the pads to line up as best I could. And wouldn't you just know it, I made the spacing between the pads too narrow! With the tiny chip in the correct place, no part of any of the pads are visible! How can I use my brilliant (but yet-to-be-tried) drag soldering technique if I can't see the pads I'm soldering too??

With the chip on the board, not all traces can be soldered. Pins 1, 4, 5 and 7 on the left-hand edge of the board are the only ones actually used, but the traces to pins 5 and 7 are obscured making soldering impossible. The penny is shown to indicate how small the FT232RL chip really is!

It looks like another etching will be necessary - this time with the surface mount pads a little bit wider. I also think that next time I'll only etch the pads that are actually used for the chip, instead of having loads of blank pads with no traces on them. Not only will it make the image transfer easier, it should also make soldering a bit simpler too. More details will be posted here soon....