Three hours to fix a ten minute capacitor job in Phoenix

Had a customer bring in an older Dell desktop last Tuesday, no power at all. I thought it was just a bad power supply, checked it right away with my multimeter and it was fine. Turned out to be two swollen capacitors hiding under the heatsink on the motherboard. I've done cap replacements dozens of times, so I figured 10 minutes. Took me three hours because the solder pads were lifted on one of them and I had to jumper over to a trace with a tiny piece of wire. Anyone else run into lifted pads on boards that have been through a lot of heat cycles? I'm thinking about buying one of those hot air rework stations to make it easier next time, but I'm not sure if it's worth the $150.

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher94310d ago

Three hours to fix a ten minute capacitor job" sounds about right for anything with heat cycles in Phoenix, honestly. But $150 for a hot air station to fix one lifted pad? That's a bit much unless you're doing this every week. I'd just grab a cheap soldering iron with a fine tip and practice on some junk boards first.

the_thea9d ago

Skip the fancy tools, just get a used iron and go.