[Liftyee]

Hard to justify for a beginner? Sure.

"Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.

Can I use a magnifier to solder 0.4mm pitch parts? Sure. Would I prefer a binocular microscope? 100%, every time. Both usable, not the same.

[lelanthran]

> "Can't tell the difference?" is not true, once you're dealing with small enough parts.

Yeah, but that's the qualifier - "small enough parts". Go small enough and even an expensive iron isn't going to help you.

[peteforde]

Except that we're on HN so it shouldn't really surprise anyone that I'm using these "expensive" tools to solder and correct 0402 and sometimes 0201 parts.

Effectively impossible without a stereo microscope.

[sandreas]

I soldered a backlight fuse of a Lenovo T480s with a 35$ iron and a 10x magnifier, see [1] (german)

I'm not trying to proof you wrong but sometimes good enough will do. However, good tools are worth the money most of the time.

1: https://www.computerbase.de/forum/threads/t480s-backlight-si...

[peteforde]

I understand that you're trying to flex a bit to prove your point, but a 2-lead rectangular discrete and dead-bugging a QFN-24/28 are in entirely different spectrums of difficulty.

Edit: Apologies, in my head I was replying to a different thread. I would still say that if you're working at that scale you should deploy appropriate tools to make the job simple, fast and repeatable.

Doing work on extremely small parts without a stereo microscope offers extremely small returns once you've finished proving your point to nobody watching.