Found a cheap fix for bad solder joints on old circuit boards

After 6 months of fighting intermittent failures on vintage gear, I started using a cheap hot air station from Amazon to reflow the old joints instead of trying to touch them up with an iron. It fixed a 1982 receiver that had me stumped for 3 hours. Has anyone else tried this approach on boards with cracked solder around heavy components?

2 comments

2 Comments

alices1621d ago

Man that's the thing with old gear, the heat cycling just makes everything brittle over time... it's like how old houses settle and crack in ways you don't see coming.

blake30221d ago

Houses shift and crack because of moisture and ground movement just as much as temperature though. Is it really the heat cycling that gets you, or is it more about years of power surges and voltage spikes slowly cooking components? I've seen old amps that ran hot for decades sound fine until one random cap finally gave up.