Moved my bench to Thailand and humidity rewrote my checklist for choosing a place
I do display driver integration and I relocated to Rayong two years ago to be near the suppliers on the eastern seaboard. I brought a home bench with me. I did not bring any understanding of what tropical humidity does to a working space, and that turned out to matter more than floor area.
What went wrong in the first place I rented:
Condensation on cold surfaces every morning during the wet season. Boards left out overnight had a film on them. Nothing dramatic failed, but reflow results got inconsistent and I chased ghosts for weeks before I understood the cause.
A ground-floor room with one small window, which meant no cross ventilation. Running the air conditioner as a dehumidifier all day is possible and it is expensive.
No dedicated circuit. A hot plate, a reflow oven and an air conditioner on the same line means you learn where the breaker is.
What I look for now, and what I would tell anyone moving a bench here:
Upper floor if you can, cross ventilation on two sides, and a room you can close off and dehumidify separately from where you sleep. Ask what the electrical supply to the unit actually is, not what the building brochure says. And check whether you are allowed a dedicated circuit at all, because in many rentals you are not.
I compared what that costs across the industrial corridor on https://thailand-real.estate/ before the second move. The useful discovery was that going fifteen minutes further from the coast changed the price enough to afford a place with the extra room I needed.
Anyone else here running equipment in a humid climate? Curious whether people bother with a proper dry cabinet or just accept the reflow variability.