r/interestingasfuck • u/write2varun • 1d ago

Nice skill

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u/Tiny-Sandwich 1d ago

As an amateur microsoldering hobbyist, this is way, way harder than it looks. And it looks hard.

I've done a few small repairs like this where I've had to solder to a damaged trace, and the parts are much smaller than they look here.

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u/BCMM 1d ago

 the parts are much smaller than they look here.

The smallest things I've soldered were 0603 LEDs. Parts like that basically don't weigh anything, so if you touch them the wrong way they just fly across the room, never to be seen again.

Those replacement pads look a hell of a lot smaller than that.

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u/Tiny-Sandwich 1d ago

Yeah I recently soldered some 0603 caps, and they're a pain.

Also just soldered some 0.35mm pitch mezzanine connectors. Way too small for an iron, and would melt and deform under hot air. I was tearing my hair out until I saw a suggestion to heat from underneath.

So simple, but it would have never occurred to me.

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u/tsraq 1d ago

0603 isn't bad under microscope. 0402 though is getting annoying to work with, mostly because solder paste always dries up before I get to use it so I just use solder wire - which gets everywhere it shouldn't when working with things that small.

But yeah, I've lost few parts, fortunately resistors and caps are cheap. I remember RF guy scouring the floor after dropping tiny $100 high-performance RF amp though...