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Hot take: that 'simple' capacitor replacement on a 2018 MacBook board took me 4 hours
Turns out the pad was completely gone under the old one... had to run a trace wire from three points over. Anyone know a better flux for that kind of micro-soldering?
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hannah_fox14d ago
Honestly four hours sounds pretty good for that kind of repair. I've seen way worse where the whole landing zone is just dust and you're basically rebuilding the circuit from a photo. That wire fix is standard practice, not some crazy last resort. For flux, the cheap no-clean stuff in a syringe is usually fine if you're careful with the heat.
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tara_sanchez14d ago
You're totally right about the wire fix being normal, it's just one of those things that looks scary if you haven't done it before. Seeing a completely destroyed pad is the real nightmare, makes a simple trace repair feel easy. I've definitely been there staring at a crater where the pad used to be, it's the worst. Good call on the cheap flux too, sometimes the fancy stuff isn't worth the extra money for basic jobs.
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