I just got the amazing DS80C400 from Maxim and I feel torn: it's a wonderful piece of hardware, but it's SMD, and very small to that, and I've never done anything in SMD. I've searched the forum and the net and found quite a few ways of soldering such chips "under condition that the PCB is good" - and I can't call the PCBs I have made myself hand-drawing with a marker, "good".
I heard of techniques using photo-paint, transfer of laser printer toner from a transparency, using computerised etching, and some more - and I don't know what to start with - how to make a good, precise PCB at home, at acceptable cost? What kind of tools, chemistry etc do I need, other than in "normal" PCB?