Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

>The first thing you should ALWAYS do is to cut the component out.
>Clip all the legs with a sharp pair of dykes. It's not worth saving
>that component worth a few cents (worst case a few dollars) to ruin
>your board. Then it becomes much simpler to work on one pad at a
>time. I like to heat from one side and use a vacuum sucker from the
>other. Properly timed, you can heat the pad just until the solder
>liquifies again, then suck the leg out the other side.

That sounds like good advice.

At 3:36 PM -0400 4/27/03, The Old Crow wrote:
>
>
>  This thing:
>
>http://www.howardelectronics.com/den-on/sc7000.html
>
>  Don't let the price scare you (too much).  I've had one for 18 months
>now, and I cannot imagine doing solder re-work without it.

Thanks :)  That looks great, but I think it's way over my DIY budget.

I know what you mean about that price. Even as much as I screw up, I can't justify a $400 eraser.

Quite a bit less professional but MUCH more useful that the little bulbs: Larry and I have long been fans of the Radio Shack desoldering iron (it looks like an iron with a vacuum bulb in a sidecar kind of arrangement) -- I think it costs $10. I recently had to remove a capacitor from a double sided through plated PCB much like a MOTM (I think it was an Oakley). I think the iron touched each pad for 2-3 seconds before the solder was molten, and then just release the bulb -- then the component came out very easily.

The trick is (to put the component in right the first time! -- but failing that) to let the desoldering iron heat up before you try to use it -- I let it heat about five minutes. I have had a few problems with MOTM type PCBs (had to make a few attempts to get the component out), but I've never damaged a board.

JB