Finally gave in on using a hot air station for soldering

I've been doing board repairs for like 8 years now and always used a soldering iron for everything, even QFN chips. Last week I had a job on a Dell laptop board from 2019 where the GPU needed reballing. I spent 3 hours with flux and braid trying to clean up pads and pulled 3 of them off by accident. A buddy at a shop in Austin told me to borrow his Quick 861DW for a day. I used it on a dead Xbox board first and popped off a RAM chip in under 30 seconds without any pad damage. That moment when I realized I wasted years fighting with irons on big components hit me hard. Has anyone else held out on a tool forever and then felt stupid after finally trying it?

2 comments

2 Comments

hayes.oliver7d ago

Pulled 3 pads off? That's a rite of passage, not a failure.

xena_murphy6d ago

My first real bouldering session at The Spot in Denver I peeled off three pads just trying to figure out where to put my feet... they all ended up in a pile behind me somehow. It took me like five minutes to realize I wasn't even on the right start hold either.