Just ordered my first beginner SMD kit, I have soldered through kits prior to this. Curious if anyone has used any of the “hot plate” or “oven” techniques to solder SMD components. If so any tips? Thanks !
Practice 
Take some boards of unused/broken electronics (everyone has some old, broken Android or iPhone; or at least knows someone who has one) and play around with them. Desolder components, resolder them, try the air-flow and heat settings of the hot air soldering station – I guess it’s part of the SMD kit? --and get comfortable with it.
…and: use flux! I prefer SMD291, and don’t forget to clean the stuff afterwards (isopropyl alcohol), even if it says “no-clean flux”. To my knowledge, there is no such thing, the stuff is sticky as hell .
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One thing I just noticed when starting out - make sure you are soldering on a level surface. I had a bunch of components drift during a recent project and having things flat helped.
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I have hot air and a hot plate but I still mainly solder smd with a large chisel tipped iron.
Hot air is very handy for removing components but I still prefer to put them on one by one with an iron.
The plate I just find it’s too much hassle to set it up for just one PCB, but I guess if you were doing a lot of boards in one go it would be ideal.
I’ve always used solder paste and a good hot air gun (similar to this one on Amazon), one that will get up to 450C quickly. A level surface is important, and don’t go too crazy on the force of the air blower if the one you get has that capability on it, as it can blow the SMD components off the mark.
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Use practice kits, aliexpress seem to have several.
I found them helpful in working out the methods to suit me.
Flux is a must. As is cleaning, i use brake cleaner as a gallon is the same price as a small bottle of ipa and it shifts the sticky mess.
I use an air station now and have a small frame to hold the boards flat.
Solder paste is fine for doing loads at once but i still use an iron and solder for cleanup and bridge removal on ics etc.
Solder braid is your friend but flux is a bestie.
I recently started using the new ‘art’ water brush for flux as it spreads better and has a point unlike the wee brush in the bottle.
And that nylon scrub pen is still going after 30+ years
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Interesting approach to use a water brush. What flux do you use? And how do you get your flux to be so ‘fluid’ that this works? Dilute it with alcohol?
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I use this cheap watery 'sno clean, but i found that while ink thinner turns paste into a runnier gloop, i had more success using the thinner in a brush pen to distribute old or thicker pastes.
Note: The brush tip has a shaped bunch of hairs to channel liquids rather than a felt tip.
Just wondering whether anyone has seen this before.
While looking at a PCB I bought I saw small soldering balls sticking out of some of the SMD components. You can see a few in this picture on the top side of all capacitors (yellow / orange components) in the middle of the picture. There are no shorts I can measure, so for that reason this may have just passed quality control I guess. I take it the solder has not had enough time to flow properly or was not hot enough? Any experiences you have in this regard?
I think I will try to reflow it on a hot plate or using some hot air.
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It’s just cooled too quickly. Hot air reflow or hotplate (not both) with some flux and stop when shiny.
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