Speaking of learning by practice, here's two things I got a lot from: - Take apart scrap hardware, and learn to both de-solder, re-solder, and test that you ha

Speaking of learning by practice, here's two things I got a lot from: - Take apart scrap hardware, and learn to both de-solder, re-solder, and test that you haven't pulled any pads in the process! - Get an SMD soldering practice kit as well -- one where you have to put little bird-seed resistors flush to surfaces. It taught me a lot about how liquid solder works! I made the mistake of thinking I'll learn while I work on the hardware I actually cared about. Big mistake.