What I Use to Repair Laptops: Basic Tools

Microscope

Now I have … An excellent microscope with the ability to record an image on a camera or take pictures. He does not have eyepieces, but he has access to TV, which I use. I want to buy a microscope with eyepieces and an output to the camera, with a movable hinged body. But the price of such a good tool is under a thousand euros, and I still feel sorry for spending such an amount.

Therefore, I use what I have, but, I must say, I’m not the only one – watching videos on YouTube, I saw much more professional craftsmen with about the same microscopes. Mine costs about 350-400 euros.

I started practically with a children’s instrument (then I did not think that a hobby would become such a strong hobby). Here’s something like this.

I will not blame him, he helped me a lot at first. Its main disadvantage is that it has a very small focal length, in order to see something, its front part must be a few centimeters from the object. In such scenarios, it is still possible to solder somehow, but you cannot use a soldering station with hot air. The plastic of the microscope is melted and in general the tip of the station simply cannot be brought normally to the part.

Then I acquired a weaker one in terms of characteristics than what I use now, and without hinges. That’s about it.

It’s also very inconvenient, especially the uncomfortable base – it gets in the way all the time. If the phone board is still back and forth, then a larger laptop board simply cannot be placed. But then I worked more with phones, with the iPhone, so the problem was not very serious. Well, when I switched to laptops, I decided to sell that microscope and bought something like this.

The image that it gives is very good, there is a ring of LEDs that is put on the lens. It connects to a TV/monitor via HDMI. Comfortable enough, there are never any special problems with it. Matrix resolution – 30 MP. There are already models with 51 MP, but at the time of purchase, there didn’t seem to be any, or they cost a lot of money, much more than now. Bought 3-4 years ago. Well, I want to change it to something like this.

Or like this.

Soldering irons

I have three main working soldering irons. One is from the AOYUE 968 soldering station, there is a soldering dryer and a soldering iron. I use it for “rough” work, where you need a big sting. The soldering iron is so-so, but the hairdryer itself is excellent, I’ll tell you more about it in the appropriate section.

The second station is Sugon T36, with a set of five different tips – from very thin, for very delicate work, to a little thicker, which can be used to solder the legs of the multicontroller, solder the outputs of small controllers (power, for example), after landing them in place with a soldering gun, and other purposes.

The third soldering iron is Pinecil, the first version, we published its review on the blog. A good device, helps out in many situations. True, sometimes there is not enough power when the board is thick and very heat-intensive. In this case, it is difficult to solder, since heat is removed from the place of soldering and the contacts are poorly soldered.

Soldering station with hair dryer

Well, here is more about AOYUE 968. An excellent station that helps out in many cases. I know that not everyone likes to work with her, there are more professional equipment. But in my case it is enough. I perform many operations – from soldering RAM modules soldered on the board, to working with mosfets, controllers and other chips. In some cases, it also soldered processors that were obviously faulty. I rarely do this, because there is a risk of overheating the board, but still I already have experience that allows me to avoid such problems. Looking ahead, the board never “bubbled” or deformed. True, this is when there is no time, when there is time, then I desolder and desolder the chips using a thermal soldering station.

By the way, I don’t use a smoke exhaust pipe – in this case, the soldering iron becomes terribly uncomfortable, it doesn’t fit normally in my hands, I have to look for a position for comfortable work.

Yes, I almost forgot, for a hair dryer I use nozzles with a curved end, otherwise the hair dryer has to be held vertically, and this is not always possible, since the microscope can interfere.

infrared station

We are talking about a station for soldering processors and graphics chips. I have an Achi IR6500.

There are better stations, but I have learned to work with this one, and there are no problems. Once I read reviews on professional forums. Someone scolds her, and someone praises her very much. I remember one review from a specialist who has to change 5-10 chips a day. He set it up once and has been using it for several years.

With a maximum power of 1250 watts, the station has two heating zones: the upper heater, which operates according to the thermal profile, and the heating table heater. At the same time, the lower heater, with a large heating area, ensures a uniform thermal distribution. Some craftsmen remake the lower heating, but I have no problems with it.

The station provides the ability to store and install several temperature profiles, as well as the ability to connect temperature controllers to a computer via a USB port.

The model is equipped with holders and supports for fixing printed circuit boards above the working surface of the heating table, as well as a fan that cools the board after work.

Yes, there is also an oscilloscope, but this is a USB model, without its own screen. We’ll talk about it somehow in one of the subsequent articles, since I want to talk more about the oscilloscope. Well, that’s all. It would be interesting to know what tools you use in your work – of course, if you repair phones / laptops more or less regularly.

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