A shout-out for a great service:
If you need full-custom electronics in your new tool, you know how hard it is to find the ICs you need in DIP packages. Everything now comes in "Small Outline" packages -- or smaller! I was getting pretty frustrated trying to solder 0.8mm-pitch ICs, and don't have the setup to glue down really small stuff (and don't even _talk_ about the .5mm TSOPs!). Not even the toaster oven method is safe on all chips like hall-effect sensors... fwiw.
Back in January, I found an outfit that makes "breakout boards" for every conceivable "small outline" and "surface mount" packaged IC you can name, adapting them to standard DIP outlines for prototyping. They have hundreds of styles in stock, fitting tens of thousands of ICs. And they're inexpensive
They not only sell the boards, but for a little more, they'll order your parts from DigiKey, solder them on the boards, put pins on the board so you can plug it into your protoboard, and ship it via any method you want. I ordered some boards populated with teensy little analog multiplexor chips with leads so close they looked like hair, back in January... about
4pm on that day. The next morning, they shipped! They had gotten the parts from DigiKey, installed them, and shipped the goods in about 14 hours! It's a great way to work with those little chips that eventually will go on your finished pcb without having to track down DIP versions (which might not even exist!). They are,