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Appreciation post: my $9 soldering iron beat my $60 station on a 1986 Game Boy
I finally cracked open the Game Boy I bought at a garage sale in Sacramento 6 months ago for $20, and the sound was dead. My nicer temp controlled station was already set up on the bench, so I figured I would just use that with a fine tip. Soldered four joints on the headphone jack and the volume wheel and got nothing but a buzz. Just for fun I grabbed my cheap 15 watt pencil iron that I got for $9 at a Harbor Freight in 2019 and tried the same spots. Both joints took solder in about two seconds flat, way faster than the fancy station, and the sound popped right back on. Turns out that little pencil puts out the perfect heat for these old through hole boards and the station was just soaking heat into the ground plane without doing anything. I have repaired maybe 30 old handhelds with that cheap thing since and it has never let me down. Anyone else find that the cheap tool wins on old gear, or did I just get lucky with this one?
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