• Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The Smart Soldering Iron will set you back $80, while the Soldering Station, which includes the soldering iron and the battery pack, costs $250.

    Most interesting to me is that they put the display on the soldering station/battery pack thingy instead of the iron itself.

    • bruhduh@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I bought my soldering station with air solderer and iron solderer for about 40$ from AliExpress, the ones with IR bottom heater cost around 90-100$

      • phx
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        2 months ago

        What’s the IR bottom heater for?

        • Hagdos@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          IR bottom heaters are usually not strong enough for reballing. They’re for boards that are hard to solder, because there’s a lot of copper or a heatsink for example.

          The bottom heater preheats the whole board, not to soldering temperatures but enough to make soldering a lot easier.

          • phx
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            2 months ago

            Ah. Other than fixing the old Xbox360 RROD , I’ve never needed to do any BGA work, just circuit soldering

            • bruhduh@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Those Nvidia cards used in mining and AI need reballs regularly, also ps4 south bridge often falls off, also intel sockets sometimes need reball, also you can upgrade ram on your phone and Nintendo switch

              • phx
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                2 months ago

                Oh for sure. I’m not knocking those that can do it, just that my regular soldering skills are shit enough that I’d probably be hesitant to reball something more complicated even with the right gear :-)