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Hard to justify for a beginner? Sure. "Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts. Can I use a magnifier to solder 0
by Liftyee 5mo ago
Hard to justify for a beginner? Sure.
"Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.
Can I use a magnifier to solder 0.4mm pitch parts? Sure. Would I prefer a binocular microscope? 100%, every time. Both usable, not the same.
- lelanthran 5mo ago> "Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts. Yeah, but that's the qualifier - "small enough parts". Go small enough and even an expensive iron isn't going to help you.
- peteforde 5mo agoExcept that we're on HN so it shouldn't really surprise anyone that I'm using these "expensive" tools to solder and correct 0402 and sometimes 0201 parts. Effectively impossible without a stereo microscope.
- sandreas 5mo agoI soldered a backlight fuse of a Lenovo T480s with a 35$ iron and a 10x magnifier, see [1] (german) I'm not trying to proof you wrong but sometimes good enough will do. However, good tools are worth the money most of the time. 1: https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/t480s-backlight-sicherung-fuse-im-eimer.2044652/#post-26114606 https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/t480s-backlight-si...
- peteforde 5mo agoI understand that you're trying to flex a bit to prove your point, but a 2-lead rectangular discrete and dead-bugging a QFN-24/28 are in entirely different spectrums of difficulty. Edit: Apologies, in my head I was replying to a different thread. I would still say that if you're working at that scale you should deploy appropriate tools to make the job simple, fast and repeatable. Doing work on extremely small parts without a stereo microscope offers extremely small returns once you've finished proving your point to nobody watching.