Bought this cheap station on Amazon and it melted down on my third joint - smoke everywhere and the tip fell apart. Anyone else had luck with a specific brand under $150 or should I just save up for a Hakko?
I just crossed 500 logic board repairs in my home shop outside Denver. Halfway through I noticed my success rate dropped from 92% to 84% around the 300 mark because I was rushing to hit numbers. The other half I slowed down and got picky about which boards I took on, and my rate climbed back to 90%. So which matters more to you guys in this trade - how many repairs you do or how well you do them? I'm still trying to decide where I land.
I had an old Pioneer receiver with scratchy volume control. Read online that 99% IPA would clean it out fine. Sprayed some in there and it worked for about 2 days then got worse than before. Turns out the alcohol removed what little lubricant was left and the wiper started wearing down the track faster. Now I only use Deoxit F5 for pots. Anyone else ruin a pot with alcohol before figuring this out?
I always thought ultrasonic cleaners were overpriced toys for hobbyists until I spent 20 minutes talking to a repair shop owner in Denver who swore by his. He told me he pulls corroded board connectors from old consoles and gets them working again after a 5 minute cycle with the right solution. Has anyone else seen a real difference in salvage rates after switching to one?
So I've been using isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush forever to clean up after soldering. Works fine but takes forever and uses a ton of wipes. Last week I was fixing a power supply for a buddy and the flux was crusted on bad. I grabbed some... denture cleaner tablets from the bathroom. Dissolved a couple in warm water and dropped the board in for like 10 minutes. Rinsed it off and the flux was completely gone. No scrubbing. Anyone else tried this or got a better hack for stubborn flux?
Was helping a buddy at his shop in Austin last Tuesday when some guy dropped off a monitor with a blown cap. He tried fixing it himself and insisted the solder joints were fine. I counted 4 bridged pins on the main chip. People really need to invest in a $15 magnifying lamp before they fry a whole board. Anyone else see a ton of these half-assed DIY jobs rolling in?
Picked up this cheap adjustable temp iron from an online flash sale last Tuesday. Third time using it the tip just snapped clean off while I was trying to desolder an old capacitor on a busted amp board. The heating element cracked too and now it's totally dead. Anyone else get burned by those generic no-name irons from sketchy websites?
I spent $35 on a 200-piece capacitor assortment from a seller called PartsMall2019 and every single one tested way out of spec on my Peak ESR meter. The 100uF caps were reading 80uF at best and three were dead on arrival. Has anyone else gotten burned by these cheap kits or am I just unlucky?
I used to buy the cheapest braid off Amazon for years, but after trying some Chemtronics wick on a tight board last week, I finally get why the old timers swear by the good stuff - it didn't lift a single pad where the cheap stuff always left a mess.
I had a 1980s Sony Trinitron come in last week from a guy who wanted it fixed for his retro gaming setup. The flyback transformer had gone bad, and I spent a solid 90 minutes trying to source a replacement from my junk pile. It got me thinking about how we used to just swap tubes in the old days with that B&K 747 tester at Bob's shop back in 2005. Anyone else miss those simpler troubleshooting days before everything went surface mount?
I dropped $500 on a Flir thermal camera for diagnosing circuit board shorts and it found a bad cap in 5 minutes that I'd been chasing for hours. But my buddy swears by his $30 multimeter and says the camera just collects dust on his shelf. Do you think expensive diagnostic tools like this are worth it for the small repair shop owner?
I opened up a gaming laptop last week from some guy in Portland and found the CPU absolutely drowning in thermal paste. It was squished out over the socket pins and everything. How do you glob on that much paste and think 'yep, that's fine'? Have you ever actually read the tube instructions or just guessed?
Guy walks into my shop with a 55 inch Hisense that had vertical lines all over the screen. I told him it might be a ribbon cable issue and asked if he had 5 minutes. Popped the back off, hit the ribbon connectors with a hair dryer on low for 30 seconds, let it cool, and pressed them back down. Picture came back clean and he just stood there shaking his head. Anyone else got a quick fix that looks like magic to customers?
Last Tuesday I was pulling a power supply out of an old monitor I had sitting on the bench since the 5th. I figured after 14 days unplugged it was safe, so I just grabbed it bare handed. That 200 volt cap zapped me good and threw my hand back into a sharp bracket edge. I ended up with a gash across my thumb and a nasty shock. It took 4 stitches at urgent care and I still can't grip pliers right. Anyone else skip discharging and regret it? What's your routine for old gear?
I cracked open a 55-inch TCL from 2022 last week and half the caps on the power supply board had bulged. Customer bought it new from Best Buy and paid for an extra warranty, but they couldn't get service so they brought it to me. Has anyone else noticed newer TVs burning through capacitors faster than stuff from 10 years ago?
The picture went from wavy and dim to rock solid and bright just by swapping out a dozen electrolytic caps that had all drifted way out of spec after 40 years, anyone else still running into old gear with cap issues?
I was fixing a laptop board last month in my home shop and a guy from a local repair meetup watched me work. He flat out told me I was using WAY too much flux and it would cause corrosion down the line. I always thought more flux meant better joints, but he showed me how the residue traps moisture under components. Now I use a tiny syringe with a 22 gauge needle and apply just a dot per joint. Has anyone else dealt with flux residue causing issues months after a repair?
I had to replace a tiny surface mount capacitor on a guitar amp board last week. My usual soldering iron was giving me trouble with bridging, so I switched to my cheap hot air station at 300 degrees. It worked, but I ended up melting a nearby plastic connector because I got too close. Has anyone else found a better way to protect sensitive parts when using hot air for small SMD work?
I see everyone recommending hot air stations for desoldering on here, but I tried using mine on a vintage radio board last week and it melted a plastic connector housing before the solder even flowed. My old Weller iron with a desoldering pump got it out clean in 2 minutes. I guess hot air has its place, but for older stuff with delicate parts, I think the iron is safer. Anyone else had a hot air disaster on vintage gear?
Met this guy at a swap meet last Saturday, must have been 70 something. He was selling old CRT parts and we got to talking. I was bragging about my fancy hot air station and how I can swap out BGA chips no problem. He just looked at me and said "you fix with your eyes, I fix with my ears." At first I thought it was just old man talk. But then I got home and had a power supply that was buzzing real faint. I was about to start pulling caps and measuring everything. Instead I just sat there and listened for like 5 minutes. Heard the faintest whine from a transformer. Found a cracked solder joint on its pin that I would have missed visually for hours. Made me wonder how much time I waste looking for problems I could hear first. Any of you guys still troubleshoot by sound or am I just late to the party?
Last Saturday I had this beat up vintage radio on my bench and one of the solder joints looked perfect but the circuit was dead. A retired electrician named Frank walked by my booth at the flea market and saw me scratching my head. He said "son, a shiny joint ain't always a good joint" and showed me how to check for a cold joint by tapping it with a plastic probe. Turns out it was cracked at the base but looked clean on top. I've been doing this for 7 years and never knew that trick. Has anyone else had a random stranger drop a game changing tip out of nowhere?
I keep a tally in a little notebook and when I hit 1000 I realized I've never actually blown up a board from a bad cap job. Has anyone else tracked their repair count and noticed anything surprising?
Had a power supply that kept tripping the breaker. Measured everything. Voltages looked fine. No shorts. Replaced the bridge rectifier for no reason. Finally noticed a tiny crusty spot under a 470uF cap. That was it. Leaking from the bottom where you can't see it. Replaced it and the breaker stopped tripping. Six hours for one stupid capacitor. Anyone else ever get tricked by a hidden leak like that?
Picked up an old floor lamp from a garage sale for $5, and when I opened the base there was a cheap iron stuck to the wires with melted plastic all around it. How do you even get that far into a project and just leave it like that?