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Hot air rework station vs heat gun, which one actually ruined your boards?
I did 4 years of board repairs with a $15 heat gun from Harbor Freight, then a mentor in Denver watched me cook a capacitor bank and handed me his Hakko. He said I was melting solder joints instead of reflowing them, so now I'm wondering, are cheap heat guns ever the right call for SMD work or am I just cheap?
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robert_roberts1mo ago
Honestly the Harbor Freight heat gun is basically a tiny oven that you point at stuff, and yeah it'll reflow a joint right along with the pad, the trace, and your hopes for that board. A cheap heat gun can work for quick stuff like heat shrink or removing a connector, but for actual SMD reflow the airflow and temp control on those things are all over the place. So no, you're not just cheap, you were using the wrong tool for the job and it took a cooked cap bank for someone to tell you.
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