My old mentor told me flux is flux, so I bought the cheapest stuff for 5 years
I was cleaning a board last week and the joints looked terrible. After 3 tries I finally asked a guy at the local electronics shop what I was doing wrong. He pointed at my $4 bottle of flux and said that's the problem. Switched to a name brand gel flux and my solder flows smooth now. Anyone else get bad advice from someone who seemed to know what they were talking about?
My dad taught me to change oil every 3000 miles without fail... spent years doing that until a mechanic buddy told me modern cars can go way longer. Felt pretty ridiculous standing in the auto parts aisle after that.
$4 flux? Man, that's not flux, that's just brown water with a fancy label. I once tried to solder with a bottle I found at a dollar store and it smelled like burnt honey and left this crusty brown residue everywhere. My joints looked like I'd used play-doh instead of solder.