I hate soldering | Hacker News

Hacker News commenters compared their go-to soldering gear, including magnifiers, irons, flux cleaners, and hot tweezers.

Tool choices mentioned ranged from the Donegan DA-5 OptiVisor and Geeboon TC22 to Hakko FX-888D, FM2023-05, and FX8804-02.

People also debated solder-tip changing habits and the value of prep items like MG Chemicals flux cleaner and Knipex pliers wrench.

A parallel thread argued that soldering old arcade and console hardware is much harder than working on modern boards because of corrosion, lead-free solder, and fragile parts.