Serious question, when did we all start using hot air stations for everything?

Five years back, I'd reach for my soldering iron and a roll of wick for any surface mount chip replacement. Then a client brought in a stack of dead tablets from a local school, maybe thirty of them, all with the same bad memory chip. After the third one, my boss said to try the hot air station we had gathering dust. The rework time dropped from twenty minutes to under five, and the success rate went way up. Now I use it for most small component work. Anyone else find they barely touch their iron for SMD stuff anymore?

3 comments

3 Comments

andrew9161mo ago

Honestly, I read a blog post last year that called hot air the "default tool" for modern repair. It made sense because so much stuff is just tiny parts on boards now. My iron mostly gets used for through-hole work these days.

julia_fisher281mo ago

But @andrew916, my iron still gets plenty of work on those tiny parts too.

ninasanchez1mo ago

50 times I've accidentally melted a tiny plastic connector because my iron tip slipped off a resistor and hit the housing. It's like playing Operation with a soldering iron, except the buzzer is a tiny puff of smoke and a ruined board. Hot air definitely feels like cheating sometimes, but at least I'm not chasing microscopic solder joints around like a game of whack-a-mole. Andrew's right though, my iron is basically a paperweight for anything smaller than a dime now, unless I'm fixing my kid's broken toy.