Here's a long video showing my unsophisticated build process for one board:

This assumes you already have a board and the parts, and can program the PIC chip once it's on the board. I'm considering selling this in kit form, with the PCB and all necessary parts, including a pre-programmed PIC chip. If this might be interesting to you, let me know in a comment for send me a private message.

It's mostly a very straightforward build: 2 SMT chips, the USB connector, a few 0805 and 0603 pieces. The LCD display is a 4-pin connector. The 16 push buttons are easy to solder; plenty of space between them.

The hardest part for me is the SSOP-28 PIC chip. I'm used to SOIC layout, which is twice the spacing between pins. I kept munging the soldering and thought I was just out of practice! Solder paste works well; so does a lot of flux and careful solder placement with a hand iron. If the feet of the pins bridge it's not too bad; if the legs bridge, things get bad quickly.

Programming the PIC chip is likely the most difficult piece unless you already have a PICKit setup. If I sell this in kit form the PICs will be pre-programmed of course. If you're doing this yourself, use can use the 6-hole header to program the PIC.

From a standard PIC programmer:

• pin 1 (on the left/labeled) - MCLR
• pin 2 - Vcc
• pin 3 - Gnd
• pin 4 - ICSPCLK
• pin 5 - ICSPDAT
• pin 6 - unused

The MPLAB-X files are available from GitLab