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My first logic board repair went south until I swapped my cheap soldering iron
I was working on a 2015 MacBook Air at my bench in Austin last month and kept burning pads until I borrowed a friend's Hakko station. Has anyone else seen a big jump in success rates just from upgrading your iron?
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oliver_torres41mo ago
Oh man, I feel your pain, I melted half a board with a bargain bin iron before I learned my lesson.
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the_abby1mo ago
Three weeks ago I watched a video from that repair guy in Portland who tests cheap irons against a $200 station and the difference in heat recovery was crazy. The cheap one dropped like 40 degrees the second it touched a ground plane, which explains why I was chasing my tail on every pad. @oliver_torres4, that melted half a board story sounds way too familiar, I lost a whole ribbon cable connector that way. Once I got a proper station with adjustable temp and a decent tip, my success rate went from maybe 50% to 90% overnight. It's not just the heat either, the tip quality matters just as much. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd say the iron is the single biggest upgrade you can make before anything else.
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