Reflowed a Game Boy board in my garage in Reno and made it worse, now I wonder if my iron was the problem all along

Spencer Johnson · 2026-09-29T19:20:13.056653+00:00

About 6 months ago I killed a Game Boy Color trying to fix a dead speaker, cranked my old radio shack iron to max and cooked two pads right off the board. A guy at the local retro shop in Reno looked at it and said my iron never held temp right, that the tip was basically dead and I was fighting it the entire time. So now I'm stuck between two camps, some folks say you can recap and reflow everything with a $12 iron if you're patient, others swear you need a temp controlled station or you're just guessing. I bought a used Hakko FX-888D for $70 and the difference was night and day, joints flowed in 2 seconds instead of me holding heat on there forever. Do you all think cheap irons can honestly do console repair, or is that just something people say to feel better about their setup?

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Reflowed a Game Boy board in my garage in Reno and made it worse, now I wonder if my iron was the problem all along | Ancient Tech Fixers - HW Forums