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Hot take: that 'simple' capacitor replacement on a 2018 MacBook board took me 4 hours
Turns out the pad was completely gone under the old one... had to run a trace wire from three points over. Anyone know a better flux for that kind of micro-soldering?
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paule532mo ago
Three feet of bodge wire is what I'd call a REAL Tuesday afternoon. That crater situation is exactly why I keep a $20 hot air station and a tub of ChipQuik just for lifting components to check underneath before I even touch the board. The cheap flux in the syringe works fine for 90% of jobs but for those blind repairs where you're sweating over a pad thats barely there, I swear by Amtech 559. It's pricier but it stays tacky forever and lets you see exactly where the solder is flowing without burning everything to a crisp.
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hannah_fox3mo ago
Honestly four hours sounds pretty good for that kind of repair. I've seen way worse where the whole landing zone is just dust and you're basically rebuilding the circuit from a photo. That wire fix is standard practice, not some crazy last resort. For flux, the cheap no-clean stuff in a syringe is usually fine if you're careful with the heat.
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tara_sanchez3mo ago
You're totally right about the wire fix being normal, it's just one of those things that looks scary if you haven't done it before. Seeing a completely destroyed pad is the real nightmare, makes a simple trace repair feel easy. I've definitely been there staring at a crater where the pad used to be, it's the worst. Good call on the cheap flux too, sometimes the fancy stuff isn't worth the extra money for basic jobs.
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