If you have a stencil made by your PCB fabricator, (or maybe you have a way of fabricating your own!). You can use that to quickly apply solder paste to the pads and get things soldered real quick.

Chances are that if you are using a stencil, this board is not your first time.

The general process is to position the stencil so that it is flush against the PCB and the stencil aligns perfectly with the pads.

Scrape The Solder Paste

Using a hard piece of plastic or metal, scrape solder paste across all the holes in the stencil with as few movements as possible. Make sure all pads have solder paste on them.

Place SMD Components

If you’re using a hot air station to heat the board up, avoid placing the buttons. The plastic in the buttons can melt under the heat of a hot air station.

Heat Until The Solder Flows

Using the hot air station, apply heat to a small area of the board. Focus on one area at a time, looking for the solder paste to liquefy and become shiny.

Hand Solder Remaining Components

If you left the buttons to hand solder, now is the time to add them.

Attach the PCB Headers so that you can upload new Arduino sketches to the ESP-WROOM-02 WiFi module.