Good Heavens, this sort of surface mount stuff is not supposed to be soldered together by mere Humans!
Especially middle aged ones like me with questionable eyesight! I can't even see the pads on one of the IC's on my PCB's
I think what you are supposed to do is to apply solder paste to the pads and then stick the components to it. The whole board is then placed in a 'reflow' oven and heated until the solder paste melts. There are plenty of vids on UTube about assembling surface mount stuff.
My own preferred assembly technique is to get someone else to do it!!
Which is why I am seriously tempted to buy a complete unit from 'Freya'.
Stephen has, perhaps rather foolishly, offered to supply complete assembled units- I think I will order one before he changes his mind!
Seriously though, it looks a very useful design. While the Aurora is great, I like the flexibility of the Hedgehog. All the selectable options on the front panel make it much more useful especially for fault diagnosis & repair.
Maybe this can become the Hedgehog thread where we can discuss the constructional issues and then our experiences of actually using the thing?
Well done Frank on designing it!
All the best
Nick