Soldering SMT components

forum member davetypeguy provided me with carrier boards for Altera EPM7128SQC100 which is a surface mounted component with lead pitch of 0.65mm (25.5mil). I received two versions of the carrier boards. The first version is for machine soldering which does not have much room for a soldering iron. It is possible to solder it by heating the leads with the iron and applying solder to the leads at the same time. Not a pretty solder joints, but it works.

The second version has generous long pads for the solder iron to preheat and room to apply solder to the pads so it will flow to wet the leads. This is the right SMT footprints for hand soldering. Note: it is hard to tell at this resolution, but the part on the left of picture below (the one that's soldered with incorrect orientation) is actually a used part that was removed with bent leads and solder bridges. The leads were straighten & flatten manually and soldered to the board. It should work (as soon as I figure out how to compensate for being soldered incorrectly).

Connect power and ground and JTAG programming header to two of the boards. The devices are programmed successfully. Outputs are programmed high and low and they checked out OK.