I have some of LM386 ICs that are of the small surface mount type.

Soldering leads to the very small chips is possible but messy, time-consuming, and not fun!

Below is a photo of some PCBs that I ordered from Amazon.  They are also available through Adafruit and Sparkfun.

Below you can see how I soldered the IC in place along with a capacitor on pins 1 and 8 that sets the audio gain.

Below is a close-up image of the soldering.

Alan Wolke (W2AEW) posted a very good video on YouTube on how to drag solder an SSOP IC package.

 

It would be a good idea to subscribe to his YouTube channel and see all of his other very good videos.  Without Alan’s help, I would still be working on this project!  Thank you, Alan!

73,

Mike, AB1YK