[Test-Equipment] Unsoldering

[Bruce Lane]

	I've never had any problems with double-sided boards and power desoldering gear, with the exception of really thick ones (like those in the Tektronix DSA6xx series signal analyzers).

	The most important thing is that your desolder equipment be of top quality (Pace or similar, I use an ST115 power unit and an SX-80 handpiece), and that you have a high-mass tip in it to efficiently conduct the heat with minimal cool-down. Keep the tip clean, and be patient when desoldering a joint, especially if it's a power or ground pin.

	With extra-thick boards, or heat-hungry joints, it helps to (briefly) apply supplemental heat from a soldering pencil to the component side of the joint involved while you're trying to deslobber on the solder side.

	Happy tweaking.

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 03-Nov-05 at 19:22 Rasputin Novgorod wrote:

>Sorry, here goes another off-topic message.
>
>I'm an electronic hobbyist with some nice, if old,
>HP test gear. A electronics service tech friend gives
>me dead and abandoned old electronics, which I like
>to disassemble for the parts. I only go after the interesting,
>expensive or rare parts; most new electronics parts
>are so cheap now that they aren't worth the effort.
>
>This works fine for single-sided pc boards, but I 
>find it impossible to remove parts from double-sided
>plated thru holes w/o distroying everything. I've tried
>solder suckers, braid, fancy vacuum pump irons, etc,
>but it is very difficult to get those plated-thru holes
>clean.
>
>I've found it helps to use a big iron, 80 watts, to dump a lot
>of heat quickly and pop out the part. Smaller irons seem
>to just burnup the board w/o melting the solder. I can get out
>resistors and caps, but IC's are impossible. I've rescued
>some IC's (expensive ones that are worth the effort) by 
>cutting the board with tin snips close to the pins 
>and removing pins one by one.
>
>So, any suggestions for salvaging parts from double sided PCs?
>
>Sincerely
>Blair
>
>
>		
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Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m
"If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"