Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

[herita]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

nice system through,


haha, but i still think that i will try to make something like yours to try it out

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

I guess a picture really is worth a 1000 words. Here you go mockingbird:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1343546499
Picture shows the soldering iron, the solder pot (sitting upside down), and my crusty but wonderful iron tip (it may be carved in and dirty, but it works great).

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Looks nice, but best of all I guess it smells a lot better!

You bet!

Does the new one work any better?

Still haven't tested it yet on motherboards. It does heat up much much faster - about 10 minutes max to reach full temperature.

In fact a pre-heater is probably good idea no matter how you are (de)soldering, with multi-layer boards.

If you have a decent digital temp-regulated iron, you won't need to. Flux, chisel tip, and lots of solder on the tip can work all sorts of magic.

Also I think trying to hold a large board on top of a little pot doesn't help, as it might not make the best contact. Perhaps some kind of board holder on a lever mechanism (like a drill press) would allow for a more precise and easy way to lower the board down onto the pot.

I thought about that too, and I definitely think it would help as well. I'm too lazy to try building it, though.

What kind of stuff do you use there?

We have several digital temp-regulated irons at work. One of them is a Aoyue 937+. It has the cartridge handle and tips though, not the cheap crappy ones that most of those Chinese stations come with - those are not that good. I especially like the chisel tip we have. Just as I mentioned above - put some flux on the component's legs to be soldered/desoldered, put some solder on the tip, and heat away.
With this method I can remove caps, coils, and just about anything else. With ease! Especially caps - they just pop out.

Ah, that clears it up, so you have a bolt sitting in between the copper plumbing cap and the iron, and the screw comes in from the inside of the cap... What exactly is the point of the bolt?

Lol, no I don't think that cleared it up .
Looks like pictures it is then. My English is getting worse by the moment.

[mockingbird]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

As for the mounting - just took a normal bolt and drilled a hole through the copper cap, then removed the tip from the iron and screwed the copper cap in its place. So basically the copper cap is held to the iron with the bolt. I did not cut off the head on the bolt. I did need to shorted the bolt a little bit, though.
Not sure if that clears it up. If not, let me know and I can take some pictures of the cap.

Ah, that clears it up, so you have a bolt sitting in between the copper plumbing cap and the iron, and the screw comes in from the inside of the cap... What exactly is the point of the bolt?

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Well, I still haven't broken that clay solder pot yet. The reason for that is because I built a solder pot very similar to Agent24's and it works very good.

Looks nice, but best of all I guess it smells a lot better!

3) Haven't tested poly cap removal on multi-layer boards yet. As for regular caps on PC motherboards - I don't remember. I do remember I tried it with the old pot and it didn't work that great (it worked though). I think good flux is the key here.

Does the new one work any better? I found mine worked best after it had pre-heated the surrounding board up from cold. Or maybe mine is a bit too small. I should try a bigger size. Perhaps a pre-heater would be a good idea. In fact a pre-heater is probably good idea no matter how you are (de)soldering, with multi-layer boards.

Also I think trying to hold a large board on top of a little pot doesn't help, as it might not make the best contact. Perhaps some kind of board holder on a lever mechanism (like a drill press) would allow for a more precise and easy way to lower the board down onto the pot.

I guess I can say I was still a big noob at desoldering back then. With the same equipment at work, I can now take off any caps off of any board, lead or lead-free. The polys are only a bit harder but still not that bad at all. I can de-cap a whole board with 20-30 caps in probably less than 10 minutes.

What kind of stuff do you use there?

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Thanks.

1) It's just a standard Radio Shack 30W iron/gun. Here it is:
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...odsInSession=1
Side note: looks like the price went up on it. It used to be $8. I noticed that the Micro Center near me recently also stocked a few of those - $4 a pop, lol.

2) I'll have to check. Bolt's diameter is about 1/8" or 3 mm, not sure about the pitch. Basically, it was the same as the as the removable tip of my iron. Obviously if you have a different iron, you may need to get a different size bolt - provided that your even has that type of tip.

As for the mounting - just took a normal bolt and drilled a hole through the copper cap, then removed the tip from the iron and screwed the copper cap in its place. So basically the copper cap is held to the iron with the bolt. I did not cut off the head on the bolt. I did need to shorted the bolt a little bit, though.
Not sure if that clears it up. If not, let me know and I can take some pictures of the cap.

3) Haven't tested poly cap removal on multi-layer boards yet. As for regular caps on PC motherboards - I don't remember. I do remember I tried it with the old pot and it didn't work that great (it worked though). I think good flux is the key here.

Now that I look back on this comment I made (post #11 of this thread)...

I've been removing caps from consoles and lead-free motherboards in the last few days - and it's not easy (at least not to me) even with good expensive equipment!

I guess I can say I was still a big noob at desoldering back then. With the same equipment at work, I can now take off any caps off of any board, lead or lead-free. The polys are only a bit harder but still not that bad at all. I can de-cap a whole board with 20-30 caps in probably less than 10 minutes.

[mockingbird]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Very nice. A few questions:

1) What is that handle thing coming out of the iron where the wire is coming through? Or is that a standard handle for that iron?
2) Can you tell me which type of bolt you used (Specifically, the thread type). I'm a bit confused on how you did this. Did you take a threaded screw, chop off the top, and then screw half in the iron and half in the bolt on the inside of the copper plumbing cap?
3) Can you test this on polymer caps from boards with RoHS solder, specifically those that are located near a ground plane? I find polymer caps absorb heat much quicker than electrolytics and are not as easy to desolder.

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Well, I still haven't broken that clay solder pot yet. The reason for that is because I built a solder pot very similar to Agent24's and it works very good.

I ended up using a 5/8" (about 16 mm) diameter copper cap (the type used for water pipes here) for the job. It was just the easiest way I could think of (and it really was). First, I drilled a hole in the center and then put a small bolt through it. The bolt has the same diameter size and thread pitch as that used on my 35W Radio Shack iron tip (it's a screw-in tip... i.e. a tip with a bolt thread on one end that you screw into the iron). As for the stand - I saw a piece of wood plank in the trash can of my recent former job. It looked nice so I took it. I immediately thought about using it for the solder pot stand - and I did. Things couldn't have worked more perfectly. Some cutting and drilling, then 6 nails later and I got a nice looking and very functional solder pot stand. The design is really good IMO, because I can easily take out the soldering iron - just pull up that wire piece that looks like the mouth of the smiley face to remove it and the iron can be taken out of the stand. As for removing the solder pot - well, it's on a screw. As soon as it's cool enough to handle, you just twist to unscrew from the soldering iron and that's it. The only potential downfall of that is if somehow the solder pot becomes unscrewed while the solder is hot - lots of bad things can happen then. But that hasn't happened so far.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves now:
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1343353897
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1343353897

The pot was already used to remove some multi-pin parts on a single layer TV board - it worked very well for that. I also used it to solder some 18/20 AWG stranded wires to each other (had a Bestec ATX-1956D PSU that needed wires since its original wires were cut when I found it) - now this solder pot made the job very easy for that. Just put some flux on the wires and dip them in the solder pot for a second or two. Take out and you get perfect joints. Soldering the wires together was the easiest part about rewiring that PSU, thanks to the solder pot.

I'm thinking about making some different size solder pots for it now - that way if I need to remove a component from a board that has SMD parts around it, I can just pick the right size pot for the job.

If any of you have an old crappy iron that you are not using, I encourage you to try this - it's very easy to make. If you do lots of wire-to-wire soldering, this will make the job super easy.

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Have you thought to try paste flux?

Yes, but I don't have any at the moment.

By the way, I'm thinking of building a solder pot similar to yours to use with my 35W Radio Shack iron since it looks pretty easy - either this or next week. The clay solder pot rebuilt project is on the back burner for now since I'm out of clay (I used the dirt to plant several apple seeds, lol ). Also need to wait until it's warmer outside so I can break the clay solder pot in my backyard. This will likely be messy since the clay is rock-hard right now.

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Yes. MG Chemicals RMA liquid flux. Without it, the solder in the pot wasn't sticking at all to the capacitor leads (as expected).

Have you thought to try paste flux? The liquid flux I've tried just evaporates really quickly... paste flux stays on much longer (until you clean it off of course)

Not sure if it would make a difference though

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

On first glance I thought that was some really weird firework!

Yes. Like I said, it looks .

Would probably be good too to see what actual temperature it was at if you can. Remember just because the solder melts in the pot doesn't necessarily mean it's hot enough for easy soldering.

Unfortunately, I don't have a high-temperature probe or a thermocouple at the moment so I can't check. We do have one at work, but I would rather not bring it there - it would stink up the place pretty badly.

My guess would be it was running probably between 180 and 210 somewhere since the leaded solder balls I was adding to fill the pot would melt easily but the lead-free solder would take several seconds to melt. So you are right - for easy soldering, I would probably need the temperature up to at least 250C.

Did you put flux on the board beforehand?

Yes. MG Chemicals RMA liquid flux. Without it, the solder in the pot wasn't sticking at all to the capacitor leads (as expected).

I wonder how it would go if you remove the pipe insert and use just a clay pot? I see some of the latest commercial solder pots are in fact ceramic coated, apparently to provide more resilience to lead-free solders. You'd probably need a good quality clay though, and I'm not sure about glaze.

Interesting idea. But yes, I would need good quality clay and I would also need to bake it properly. What I have right now is mud. The soil here is very reddish and very close to clay though. The solder pot is actually pretty hard right now.
I don't think I will get rid of the copper pipe, though. It definitely helps spread the heat evenly. Without it, the clay may require a lot more heating before the solder in it melts.

I found this on DX
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/250w-te...den-220v-48763
For 22$ its worth a try

That's pretty cheap. Definitely worth it if you don't want to build one yourself.

[Koda]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

You need to fill it only once, and you can buy solder in bars which is far cheaper

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Thing with those though is you need a lot of solder to fill it, and the top is big, probably too big.

If you made some kind of insert or got a smaller one then yeah, it might be OK. I think the smallest one in that style is 38mm diameter pot, that might be small enough not to be overkill but big enough to be quite effective.

[Koda]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

I found this on DX

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/250w-te...den-220v-48763

For 22$ its worth a try

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

On first glance I thought that was some really weird firework!

Looks good though, but the smell you described seems a bit worrisome. Maybe you can remove the can after drying and just run it with the clay by itself?

Yeah the guys on those videos make it look real easy, but I found with mine you had to really make sure the board was lined up properly - without good contact it was much harder to do anything. A wider pot would probably help more there. (Good reason why I think a fountain would be better)

Would probably be good too to see what actual temperature it was at if you can. Remember just because the solder melts in the pot doesn't necessarily mean it's hot enough for easy soldering.

Did you put flux on the board beforehand?


I wonder how it would go if you remove the pipe insert and use just a clay pot? I see some of the latest commercial solder pots are in fact ceramic coated, apparently to provide more resilience to lead-free solders. You'd probably need a good quality clay though, and I'm not sure about glaze.

I say this because of course you have these: http://www.durhamgeo.com/testing/lab...-crucibles.htm

Surely material that could be used in a furnace could be used for melting solder at lower temperatures!

[momaka]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

I just want to see some results (either success or failure).

And I have them finally... IT WORKS!!! And as promised (a very long time ago), I attached some pictures of this "invention" (okay, I won't lie, it's a straight-up kludge). Let's call it a clay solder pot .

To get it to work, though, I had to up the voltage a bit to get more heat. Had a 31.5V and a 15V power supply in series for that which amounted to an output of about 100 Watts. And even with that, it still took about 10 minutes (if not 15... I didn't really time it) for the solder in the pipe to finally melt. Actually, the solder balls and pieces I put in there originally didn't melt at first. But then I touched the side of the copper pipe with some regular rosin core solder and that melted fine. Once that happened, the melted solder fell down and caught the other solder balls. In no time, they melted as well. After that, it was pretty much unstoppable - I could put all of the solder I want in it and it would melt without problem.

The only big problem I have with this clay solder pot is the smell - for some reason, the fumes from it smell really bad. I don't know if it's the can or the clay, though. I'm guessing most likely the can, as I do know that those aluminum cans are sprayed with some type of polyurethane or something similar on the inside to prevent them from oxidizing. Or maybe not.
The fumes had a "sweet" type of smell to them. Made me somewhat sick after 10 minutes . Good thing I decided to test this in the garage. Had to open the garage doors after I was done - it was that bad!

I'm thinking of breaking the solder pot down and rebuilding it again. When I built it originally, I first put some clay on the side of the can and pushed the heating element in it, leaving a hole in the middle for the pipe to go. But I think the heating element is too far from the pipe and too close to the can, since the outside of the can seems to get hot much faster than the copper pipe. Another reason for me to rebuild it is to set the space between the turns of the heating element more evenly... As I started inserting the heating element in the bottom, I was doing so in a fairly tight spiral. But the heating element got used up much faster than I anticipated, so I began putting more space between the turns of the spiral towards the top. Therefore, the top heats up much slower than the bottom. This also creates a problem of where the heat goes - right now, a big portion of it actually get dissipated by the metal plate I was using as holder. In fact, the metal plate got so hot, I couldn't even touch it. Probably close to 60-70C.

After the rebuild, hopefully there will be less heat losses and less area to heat (I'm thinking of not using the can at all and making the clay pot much smaller in diameter). That way, perhaps I'll be able to use only the 31.5V PSU (back to 50W output). I'm not sure if the heating element got damaged after I ran it at 100W for so long. It is a pretty short heating element. I guess I will find out when I break the thing down. Stay tuned.

By the way, I tried desoldering some caps from junk motherboard. It definitely wasn't as easy as some of those videos showed, but it worked. It might have been that my solder wasn't hot enough, though. After melting all of the solder in the pot, I had the pot turned off for about 5 minutes or so (had to go get the motherboard from my room). At least this solder pot has a really good heat capacity. Even 10 minutes after turning it off, the solder in the pot was still malleable.

If the rebuild of the solder pot is successful, I might post some instructions (with pictures) on how to build one. (As you can imagine, though, it's pretty simple and straightforward.)

Worth noting that brass\copper\bronze etc will be useless as it will dissolve into the solder, stainless steel is OK but won't handle lead-free. Gray cast iron or Titanium is apparently much better.

Well, let's see how long mine lasts then. I did have some steel pipes, but those had very thin walls and were painted, so I didn't want to use them.

[mstbone67]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

I used to use a metcal rework station at my old work and man that is the best. it sucked the solder out while heating. http://www.element14.com/community/v...50-desoldering this is the newer version.. I had one that was an all in one unit so no air line required the pump was in the base. this is similar but a different brand.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PACE-ST65-DE...item19cd3f3b54

I still have a metcal soldering base and use it all the time..just need to buy some bigger tips..

Oh and that chiquik stuff is the bomb.. for big ic's if you dont have a flatblade available.

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Yes that will be a problem if the board has those near the component you want to replace, however I have not seen a lot of boards that even have them, and even then, they are usually around the back of the CPU and NB\SB etc, nowhere near the electrolytics you want to remove.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

One technical problem I see... what are you going to do about those tiny decoupling monolithic ceramic capacitors on the back of the motherboard? I'm sure those will come right off as soon as the board touches the molten lead.

[Agent24]

Re: Video - quick capacitor replacement using liquidized lead

Try wrapping one of these around it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Wires-Leadin...-/370579532925

Even at 110v you'd probably find it did the trick!