Unpopular take: I stopped using rosin flux on old Sega boards

Last month in Portland I fixed a Genesis model 1 that had bad caps. Everyone swears by rosin flux for vintage stuff but I used that cheap water-soluble flux from Amazon instead. Cleaned it up with distilled water and a toothbrush, no residue at all. Anyone else tried skipping the fancy flux on retro consoles?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper1mo ago

Gotta wonder if the sticky residue people love actually traps more dust over time in those old vented cases. I've seen some gnarly rosin gunk that just turned into a dirt magnet.

the_jennifer1mo agoMost Upvoted

Rosin flux has its place but so does a clean board that doesn't look like a mess. Water-soluble stuff works fine if you actually wash it off properly. Guess the vintage crowd just likes their solder joints sticky.