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De-soldering help please...

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Electric Rain

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Note to self: You can't desolder something with NOTHING more than a soldering iron. :lol: I need some tips on de-soldering. I've heard about de-soldering bulbs that will suck up the solder. And I've heard of de-soldering wicks that when you press it against the solder and heat it up the heat will go though the wick, melt the solder and go on to the wick. And I'm sure there are many other products that will help you when de-soldering, but what works best? What do you guys use? :?: :?: :?:
 
desoldering tips

desoldering is up to the individual. The pump is a single point tool as it is designed to suck the solder from a single contact. The wick can be used on both single and multiple point contacts as it can be laid across several contacts so that they can be individually desoldered by placing the soldering iron on each contact starting at the end of the wick and pulling up on the wick as each contact is heated to the point where the solder is sucked up in the wick, and working in that fashion toward the beginning of the wick. The pump is cleaner as it tends to provide a more complete extraction of the solder from the contact.
 
Electric Rain said:
Note to self: You can't desolder something with NOTHING more than a soldering iron.

Well actually you can, we used to change 28 pin colour decoder chips, radio band change switches, in fact everything! - using nothing but a soldering iron (and lots of patience!).

When pump action desoldering tools appeared we were amazed :lol:

A lot depends on how much you are planning to unsolder, and how much you want to spend. As already mentioned, the two low cost options are pump action desoldering tools and desolder braid, getting lots more expensive you can buy tools with electrically driven soction pumps, which suck the solder through the middle of a desoldering bit.

Personally I mostly use a pump action tool, it's in my pocket this very moment!.
 
There are some issues with the pump vacuum tool causing static charge, so I use the desoldering braid. I am able to remove SOIC ICs by laying the braid (100mil braid) along the side and thus heating all the leads at one time. If the IC is dead it is best to cut all the leads and remove them one at a time to avoid possible damage to the PC board.
 
hee I like solder wick and a scaple in removing SOIC. wick up the majority of solder and then go along each leg with the soldering iron and flick each leg up with scaple
 
Desoldering

Solder wick is OK on small pads, worthless on large ones.

You can get ESD-free pumps from Soldapullit and others. They have conductive tips. Using an el-cheapo pump with a standard teflon tip will invite static discharges in the thousands-of-volts range.

The BEST system is expensive. Pace, Inc. produces a huge variety of vacuum desoldering board repair and rework systems. They use a vacuum pump and the system is far superior to a hobbyist desoldering pump. I've used them for years in the U.S. Navy, with Tektronix and when I was teaching at the vo-techin Oklahoma where we taught soldering and desoldering using Pace systems.

A good project is to check out ebay for a Pace system. If nothing else, just get the desoldering iron and then put together your own system using a vacuum pump, vacuum storage tank and air valve. It can be a lot less noiser than the Pace system if you use the pump to draw down a tank first. By the way, those Pace pumps will pull 21 inches of vacuum.

Dean
 
Sometimes I shake the solder off, if whatever it is I'm desoldering lends itself to that. Be careful that you don't shake it onto yourself or something valuable. When desoldering a PC board (when lacking the proper tools) I'll knock the board relatively gently against something to displace the solder in the direction I desire. Easier to demo than describe.

When I first purchased my shop air compressor I had what I thought was a great idea. While high pressure compressed air was incredibly effective in removing the solder it was impossible to control where the solder ended up.

Braid from scrap coaxial cable is a low cost alternative to the de-soldering wick.
 
stevez said:
Braid from scrap coaxial cable is a low cost alternative to the de-soldering wick.

I've done that in the past as well, stripped the braid off coax cable and then pulled it through a tin of flux - works just like commercially purchased de-soldering wick 8)
 
stevez said:
Braid from scrap coaxial cable is a low cost alternative to the de-soldering wick.

:p :D 8) Perfect! I'm not on a good budget to buy really anything, but I've got about 200ft of coax! :D I'll be using that (if it works for me) 'till I get a pump. Thanks guys.

Rain

P.S. Nigel Goodwin, I don't have any flux :( so does it work without it?
 
Electric Rain said:
P.S. Nigel Goodwin, I don't have any flux :( so does it work without it?

It will still work, but nowhere near as well - it's worthwhile buying a tin of flux (if you can find any - make sure it's non-corrosive, plumbers flux is highly corrosive and not suitable for electronics).
 
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