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Fixing flex cables on a hot plate vs. a proper preheater, am I overthinking this?
Honestly for years I stuck ribbon connectors back down with a $20 hot plate from a thrift store on 5th, and it worked maybe 6 out of 10 times. Now I use a real preheater and a thermocouple, and my success rate jumped to like 9 out of 10, but the setup time doubled. Some techs say the cheap method is fine if you're just doing one a month, others swear you're frying boards without temp control. Where do you all land on this?
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singh.wren4d ago
A preheater with a thermocouple is worth it if you're doing more than a couple of these a month. I ran the thrift store hot plate game for a while too and cooked a few boards before I learned my lesson, mostly on the thicker ground planes that suck heat away. Now I preheat the whole board to around 100 C first, then hit just the connector area, and the flex sits down way cleaner with less risk of lifting pads. Setup time does go up, but one ruined board costs more than the extra ten minutes. For a one-off repair on a junk device, sure, the cheap plate can work, but for anything a customer is paying for, I'd rather take the slow route.
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