Had to pick between cheap flux paste vs name brand for a BGA reball last week

2 comments

2 Comments

I mean, there's cheap and then there's "please don't let this turn my board into a permanent abstract art piece" cheap. I feel like saving twenty bucks isn't worth the anxiety of wondering if your flux is gonna leave some weird residue that makes all your balls bridge together. But hey, maybe that's just me being dramatic about something that probably works fine 95% of the time. Idk, sometimes you gamble and win, sometimes you get a nice little fireball from the rework station.

adam18613d agoTop Commenter

Oh man, @fisher.jessica you are so right about that anxiety thing. I once bought a no-name flux paste off Amazon (you know, the one with the product photos that look like they were taken in someone's basement) and it left this weird crusty white residue that looked like snow on my board. Spent like an hour with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush trying to scrub it off, and I still had to redo half the joints anyway. It's not just about the fireball risk, it's about the time you waste fixing the mess from saving those few bucks. I'll pay the extra twenty just for the peace of mind, especially when I'm working on something that took hours to layout.