I’m curious, what’s an item, tool, or purchase you own that you feel has completely justified its cost over time? Could be anything from a gadget to a piece of furniture or even software. What made it worth it for you?

  • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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    10 hours ago

    Can you post a gear list? I got an iron a while ago and some crappy Amazon sucker tubes but I really think I’m missing some stuff because I’m either missing stuff or using crappy solder. I like to try and just take components off boards for practice but even that is a huge struggle. I’ve fixed a couple things but it’s rough work for sure.

    I know it’s probably a skill issue, but I think some other tools might make certain things a bit easier as well, but without someone I know to ask questions I don’t want to just buy some random stuff.

    • lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 minutes ago

      Can you post a gear list?

      • Hotair / Soldering station: Aoyue Int 986A
      • Solder Sucker: Aoyue Int474A++
      • Preheater: Aoyue Int853A Pro
      • Solder: Sn62Pb36Ag2 (lowest melting point, hard to get because of regulations, but available on the Praud store from Poland for example)
      • Flux: Kingbo RMA-218 (available on Aliexpress, the variant in syringes is very easy to apply)
      • Convenience:
        • a brass wool sponge for removing the solder from the tip
        • a very long and thin drill bit if too much solder ever gets stuck inside the solder sucker (cleaning one of those out is a bitch)
        • tweezers

      Have a lot of fun! Soldering get’s really easy if you have the right gear. Swapping out the crappy amazon solder with the good stuff from Praud made the biggest difference, imho. You can already solder a lot of stuff with a 30W soldering iron from the hobby store, but flux and solder are what’s really important. There’s a lot of really cheap solder on amazon with way too high melting points. Avoid CFH, for example, they lie on their datasheet and I’d imagine they’re not the only ones.