Vent: A customer told me my soldering looked 'aggressive', now I redo every joint

Last Tuesday a guy drops off a beat up Pentax K1000, says the shutter's sticking. I open it up, find a broken wire on the flex circuit. I solder it back, clean joint, quick, done. He picks it up 2 days later, looks at the board with a loupe and says, 'Man, your soldering looks aggressive.' I laughed it off but then he pointed out I was using way too much heat and leaving a little spike on every joint. He was a retired aerospace tech. I've been at this 6 years and nobody ever mentioned it. So I switched to a finer tip, turned my iron down from 380 to 315 Celsius, and started using flux pens instead of the tub. Took me a week to get used to it but my joints look clean now, no spikes. Has anyone else had a customer critique their technique and turn out to be right? What weird habit did you break after a random comment?

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1 Comment

stellabennett21d ago

Hold on, slow down. You just let one random guy with a loupe rewrite your whole process. That "spike" he complained about? That's just a tiny point from pulling the iron away, it aint a cold joint or a bridge. Aerospace guys have their own standards for stuff that goes in orbit, but a K1000 shutter flex wire doesnt need that. I bet your 380 degree joints had better wetting and stronger mechanical grab than these new delicate ones. Now you're probably underheating thick pads and getting dull, cracked solder that fails a year from now. That customer saw what he wanted to see and you let him, now you're chasing a style that has nothing to do with function. Sometimes a bit of extra heat and a quick pull is the right call, not just the pretty one.