I was able to procure myself some leaded solder and I had no idea it would make things THAT much easier. Turns out it wasn’t that I sucked at this all along
@Siph you probably only used bad unleaded then, I've never felt that much of a difference (learned it by doing a few thousand unleaded solder joints tho)
@noiob Went to unsolder everything on this board to try again on another one. Before doing that I tried to do a comparison.
Same glob of flux, same iron temp, same technique. Bottom was my unleaded wire. Top is my leaded wire
@Siph you need a significantly higher temp to melt unleaded solder
@noiob yeah, temps that damage the solder mask on the PCB
@Siph yeah not sure what's happening there, I've put more than 400°C into boards no problem
@noiob maybe I’m doing things wrong and I’m just inexperienced but leaded solder isn’t that much more expensive and I find it much easier to work with
@Siph I mean I can't think of anything you could do wrong for it to behave like that. Like I've said, I learnt with unleaded and my default parts store doesn't even sell leaded anymore, I only have leaded solder to work on old devices, I can barely tell the difference
@Siph but it's not like I'm a soldering pro lol
@Siph also for [un]soldering chips like these I'd look into one of those tiny hot plates
also just a reminder that most flux is carcinogenic and you should use an activated carbon filter
@noiob Oh I’m using a hot air station and solder paste for soldering and unsoldering chips
@noiob 400°C, and it still wasn’t flowing as nicely as the leaded wire at 360
I broke multiple pads by just reflowing