_UV_ wrote on 2020-03-30, 17:05:
About temperature control for old (or pretty modern cheap made) weak PCBs that is mandatory if you want to not destroy further. First time soldering in a facility very rarely lead to bad consequences, so even most cheap "goods" can survive it.
Smaller pads and traces with less thermal mass are much less forgiving when raw heat is applied from your line voltage buzz wand. Maybe more expensive board vendors do a better job with bonding of their copper layers and plating to the FR4, but I've never noticed a significant difference in how resilient they are. I'm not the be all in terms of experience, but I've worked the full range from random yumcha boards to expensive on shore custom stuff. IMO, quality is usually evident in other ways like mask details, feature alignment, defect size and rate, etc.
Can you do soldering with a buzz wand? Yes, absolutely. Should you? No, not unless you have no other choice, not if you're dealing with parts that have low thermal tolerances (like pretty well any computer component). An unregulated iron will introduce additional thermal stress compared to a regulated iron, needlessly damaging the piece you're working on. Even the cheap Hakko 936 clones are a good investment in comparison.