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now lately ive been trying my hand at a little diy project here n there
now i made the mistake along with many mistakes which are great and a learning curve
but i put a part in the wrong place well a few and desoldering seems to be alot harder then youtube vids have plotted out
i can never seem to get the solder out of the pad hole well enough that i can swap the parts around

i use a solder sucker to get most of whats on top i can never get it to pull the entire amount out at once like deep down
then i try some braid on top to see if it will soak it up and still doesn't get to it and proving difficult

what can i try or mebe some tips or tricks

long story i had to swap a 47 and 4.7 cap around

Get almost all of the solder off, then take, say, a capacitor, melt the solder that's in the hole, and put the capacitor into the hole. Keep it melted, and pull the cap out. That works sometimes...

I can rarely get the solder out completely with a desoldering braid. Especially with double-sided boards.

Best option: Stop making mistakes.

With "plated through-holes" found on double-sided PCBs, fully desoldering is often difficult...but certainly not impossible.

A lot of times you'll need to hit the pad first with the sucker and then follow up with braid to get the remaining solder that's "inside" the PCB. This is especially true if your sucker is the manual bulb type commonly found at Radio Shack.

I recently got a spring-actuated mechanical sucker, and it's changed my life!! That thing is killer. It gets way more suction than the the bulb type I have and does a much better job of cleanup and hole clearing. I think I paid $8 for it.

Do you have a set of "helping hands" to hold the PCB while you do the desoldering? If not, you really need to get a set.

McSpunckle wrote:Get almost all of the solder off, then take, say, a capacitor, melt the solder that's in the hole, and put the capacitor into the hole. Keep it melted, and pull the cap out. That works sometimes...

I can rarely get the solder out completely with a desoldering braid. Especially with double-sided boards.

Best option: Stop making mistakes.

ill try the capacitor thingo

and yes im pretty much a scared rabbit and now quad checking everything

culturejam wrote:With "plated through-holes" found on double-sided PCBs, fully desoldering is often difficult...but certainly not impossible.

A lot of times you'll need to hit the pad first with the sucker and then follow up with braid to get the remaining solder that's "inside" the PCB. This is especially true if your sucker is the manual bulb type commonly found at Radio Shack.

I recently got a spring-actuated mechanical sucker, and it's changed my life!! That thing is killer. It gets way more suction than the the bulb type I have and does a much better job of cleanup and hole clearing. I think I paid $8 for it.

Do you have a set of "helping hands" to hold the PCB while you do the desoldering? If not, you really need to get a set.

i have one of the spring suckers pretty cool gets most of it out and i have like a mini pcb vice type of thing thats prob the best 15 dollars i spent

I have a spring-loaded solder sucker for double-sided boards. It works pretty well!

For most through-hole repair work, this is an imperative operation.

I use two methods:
-Mechanical de-soldering pump (as suggested above)
-De-soldering braid.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

A de-soldering pump can be very effective when removing lots of solder quickly, however, it is not very effective for cleaning pads and/or removing small joints.
One advantage of a de-soldering pump is that less heat is required to b maintained on the PCB, thus the PCB takes less thermal stress.

De-soldering braid can be quick and effective, but usually requires considerably more heat to be effective. Using the right size braid for the job will make or break the repair.

In short:

De-Solder Pump
-Good for lots of solder and/or minimal heat

De-soldering Braid
-Good for precision work, requires more heat

I hope you find this information relevant and useful.

Man, de-soldering can be really frustrating!

I put in wrong components and accidentally fill in holes pretty frequently and for me solder braid is all I use. Love the stuff! Really fast, really clean and easy, and really reliable/predictable.

I'd suggest something like this type, you want a fairly thin and narrow braid for the small holes on pcbs and it'll work fine for lugs of pots and switches and jacks too. http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?WT.z_header=search_go&lang=en&site=ca&keywords=os-b-5as&x=0&y=0

Make sure your iron is nice and toasty and clean, fill in the hole or the connection to be de-soldered with a bit of extra solder to sort of re-flow the joint a bit and make sure there's some solder to move as it'll help it flow better, and then just put the braid over it and hold your iron on it. Within a second or two you'll see the solder start to move and it'll flow nicely into the braid and Bob will be your uncle.

My Dad's been an electrician for forever and a day, and he showed me a braid trick that has proven invaluable in this area. I pull a clean length of braid off my spool and place it over the joint that I need to de-solder. Then I pin that sucker there with a nice hot iron. Once the solder starts softening up I tug on the braid a little bit with the spool end and kind of gently work it back and forth in small arcs using the joint and iron as a pivot. This really draws the solder out and into the braid. Works like a charm for me!

Best tip I can think of to add to the ones above is to add a little bit of fresh solder to the joint you're working on, this makes sure heat flowss into the joint properly and hence the solder melts properly and can be removed easily. Also when using braid the quality really does matter. Crap braid won't remove anything whereas good braid will remove solder with ease (as is always the case expensive does not necessarily mean quality). Personally I use a spring sucker for all but the stuff that needs to be totally clean. Practice makes prefect.

McSpunckle wrote:

Best option: Stop making mistakes.

probably the best advice i've heard all day.....