I used too small of a magnifying glass and for whatever reason that made it so my soldering wasn't good. When I switched to my dad's magnifying glass with built in lamp, it was leaps and bounds better and I got a better view of the tip and solder. Still, I bridged connections on the new one but I got that sorted out and took the extra solder out of the system.
Mine boots up usually in about 1-2 seconds. Sometimes 5, that is the longest though. I never have to wait half a minute or more. It's pretty nice.
Thanks for the reply. I have a lot of experience with other platforms but zero experience modding/exploiting a Switch and I'm looking for all the info I can get before doing it. Appreciate it and glad to hear it eventually went well.