What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

from where?

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

evilkitty

How do you like your Desoldiering gun station

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

I have used it a few times now, very happy with it, had to change (not replace) the tip once so far for some large pins, and it was a tight fit; lucky i do not mess with that size pin often (1mm square pin)
i did pick up a set of spare parts, but i would still like to have a few more spare tips of the size i use most

capacitors just fall out

so far i have used it to replace a relay; crap caps in 3 boards, remove 4 plugs cause i would rather use through hole wire, remove a good cap for re-positioning, removing a 10-pin header would have never got it out without this

I do not have a good place to keep it set up so i keep it in the box it came in and i clean it after each session

i have not replaced the usb connector yet, i think i will wait till i get a better iron before doing that

so far think i have not used over 350C, usually 275-300

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

If you have the room for it get a small computer table that works pretty good
for a soldering table

Just do not use the keyboard small table ——->
a lighted magnifying glass for me is a must have on my table

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

i have not replaced the usb connector yet, i think i will wait till i get a better iron before doing that

so far think i have not used over 350C, usually 275-300

Make sure that you run the clean rod alway to just before the plastic handle before you turn it off so that you do not have the flux in the Desoldiering Gun tube becomes clogged this happens when you have solder that has a lot of flux in

If this happens and you can not push the cleaning rod all way in turn unit off and wait until it cools then take 1/16 “ drill bit with the tip remove and carefully drill the gun tube clear a dermal tool works real good for this


You find when you are working with double sided boards if go to 775* F for me it works very well unless the pads are very small 650 to 675* F works very well also

The only time this becomes a problem is when you have shity boards that turn brown or black around the pads I have had turn the temperature down 625*f and add solder to the pads to remove the parts that kind a board

You can sometimes tell if it is one of these types of boards one side will white on one side and other side will be green or the board will be very very thin

Now doing USB surface mount jacks now that can real fun to do if lead are long enough just use the Desoldiering Gun Station and get as much of the solder as you can off of the pins BUT do not stay on any of those pins for very long or you will lift the pads right off the board or melt the plastic that hold the pin in the USB connector

This sometimes works if you take the Desoldiering Gun tip and lay it (side ways) on top of all the pins you can lift it right off the board but only if the pins are long enough and there is enough room for the gun to lay side ways does this work


Or if you have temperature controlled hot air gun station put smallest diameter tube cap on it and just heat the pins on the board and very carefully try to move the USB jack unit it comes free


The through hole USB connectors are very easy to do with the Desoldiering Gun Station

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

I had to change (not replace) the tip once so far for some large pins, and it was a tight fit; lucky i do not mess with that size pin often (1mm square pin)

If the tip becomes uneven or a piece breaks off just grind the tip flat and ready to go again
A dermal tool with a 1.5” cut off disk work good for this or a very small grinder from Harbor Freight also works very well for this just use the side of the wheel for this

******I know you should never use the side of a grinder wheel but this grinder does not spins that fast and you can control it speed ********

Take the largest tip and drill the tip hole bigger to fit the pin
or save your broken tips—-> and grind the tip flat and use it on devices that have bigger pins

Or have more than one gun and have different tips on each one I have done this before

The guns fail in one of two ways either it does not heat or you will see this “——— or error “ which means that the temperature sensor failed

If the temperature sensor fails when it is ON the gun will become red hot where the heater element is and will not control the temperature

Both items are from Harbor Freight

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

If you have the room for it get a small computer table that works pretty good
for a soldering table

Just do not use the keyboard small table ——->
a lighted magnifying glass for me is a must have on my table

i have one of those, but i have my computer on it, i put my define r4 case on top of it so i can see through the case window

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

no.
look a bit harder.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/EU-P...786830474.html

I deiced to get my dad to get me one for my birthday, but this listing is no longer available
recommendations for a good iron? or where to get this one?

On a side note i did try to de-soldier some caps on a dell motherboard with the de-soldiering gun the solder just would not melt no matter how much heat i used and the holes were seemed too tight to pull air through, i ended up fighting it all day or around 6 hours and drilled out the solder left in the hole with a very tiny hand drill, it did boot the 1st time after replacing the bad caps, but not since, but i should remove the GPU it is probably making the PSU think there is a short (GT 210 calls for 20A PSU, PSU has 18A on the +12v)

[stj]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

for clearing holes and other tricks.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10-K...862870959.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/High...841019452.html

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

I'll admit i did not thing of using the tip cleaning tools with my gun on the pcb, if the solder will not melt i do not see how it would work though
i could not even get the caps out 80% of the time on the board that is what took so long, when i could not get the solder out of the empty hole with the gun i drilled it out
in the event i did get the solder to melt by the time i got the cap half way out it solidified (heat was applied the entire time)

[stj]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

you need to heat the board with hot air first before using an iron.

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

I'll give that a try next time, thanks
any suggestions on where to get that iron though? or a alternative one, to replace my crappy $2 to $4 irons

[stj]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

i'll look later.
do you have a 24v 5A psu??

[evilkitty]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

nope, the most i have is 12v, wait i think the zd915 may be 24v, not sure about the amps, the gun is rated for 24v @ 80W so about 3.33A

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

nope, the most i have is 12v, wait i think the zd915 may be 24v, not sure about the amps, the gun is rated for 24v @ 80W so about 3.33A

Its more like about 5 amps at start up then drop down to about 3.33 amps

18 volts @ 12 amp but when you get near the 12 amps on start up the power

it does not like see that amperage it will keep restarting the power supply ( it needs 30 seconds to stabilize) then you can get the full power of the power supply

It runs the gun , the air pump and the controller board and a cooling fan if it has one

[stj]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

that must be the switcher, there are some with a linear psu in them.

[stj]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

btw, what did you do with those faulty controllers?

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

btw, what did you do with those faulty controllers?

The back light is what fails on the controller boards but what also happens is that the temperature swings are more pronounced when the back light goes bad

That is why I was glad that I found an eBay Seller who is selling them I bought four of them
and they are the newer one ( U3 ) that shows when booting up

Are you wanting one of them if you do PM me and I will send you one

I only have two of them that has done this

I would have to look for the other one

[sam_sam_sam]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

that must be the switcher, there are some with a linear psu in them.

The linear version had it own problems with bad connection on bridge rectifiers or to the transistor or mosfets which ever ones they used

I had one of them that I had to repair a couple times for these types of problems

Yes it is the switching power supply module that has this problem
The controller boards that boot up and showing nothing or shows ( U1 ) are the older controller boards and were meant for the transformer version did not have the time delay for turning on the heater element which is about 5 seconds

[momaka]

Re: What is a good de-soldiering iron/tool?

On a side note i did try to de-soldier some caps on a dell motherboard with the de-soldiering gun the solder just would not melt no matter how much heat i used and the holes were seemed too tight to pull air through

And that's why I don't recommend desoldering guns for motherboard recaps - the multi-layer setup + thick copper traces of motherboards just makes it near impossible to pull caps out with a desoldering (vacuum) iron/gun. Save those desoldering irons/guns for removing through-hole components from single-layer boards (like chips and transformers from TV boards).

but i should remove the GPU it is probably making the PSU think there is a short (GT 210 calls for 20A PSU, PSU has 18A on the +12v)

LOL, that's just a little derp nonsense from nVidia, but I'll explain.

GeForce GT210 requires nowhere close to that amount of power. 12V @ 18 Amps is 216 Watts of power - that's how much you might expect a Radeon R9 290/X to pull near full load. But the puny GT210??? - Probably no more than 30 Watts, if even that (the GT210 is just a shrunk-down core of the 8400 GS core). The size of the heatsink on it should be a good indicator of that. But I digress, here.

In any case, nVidia and ATI just aren't very clear when they specify their power ratings. That 18-20 Amp "requirement" you saw is actually just a recommendation for the whole system. But depending on your CPU TDP and number of HDDs and other devices you have, you might need more or less than that. nVidia and ATI just give those numbers as a ballpark... and sometimes that ballpark is in a completely different state... but again, I digress.

In short, if you have a basic PC with 1-2 HDDs, 1-2 ODDs, and just an average CPU, then a 200-250 Watt power supply with at least 14 Amps on the 12V rail should be able to run that PC and a low-end video card like the GeForce GT210/420/520/620/720 and Radeon HD3450/4350/5450/6450.

I'll admit i did not thing of using the tip cleaning tools with my gun on the pcb, if the solder will not melt i do not see how it would work though
i could not even get the caps out 80% of the time on the board that is what took so long, when i could not get the solder out of the empty hole with the gun i drilled it out
in the event i did get the solder to melt by the time i got the cap half way out it solidified (heat was applied the entire time)

Sounds like you didn't have your tip prepped right.

I too will admit that I rarely clean my iron's tips, but that's because I constantly add fresh solder to them and let the old oxidized solder fall of by itself.

The key to making solder stick to your tip is to add fresh solder to it. If fresh solder does not stick to the tip at all, you need to clean the tip with something mildly abrasive. In general, it's best to clean tips in brass shavings, but a wet sponge / paper towel works okay as well. If these don't do it, you might have to use a fine sand paper on the tip - though that could ruin the coating on it in the long term, so I don't recommend it. But once the tip is clean, coat it with fresh solder and let it stay on there. Moreover, don't let the tip overheat before you attempt to coat it with solder - otherwise if it's too hot, the solder won't stick to it. Also, once the solder stays on it for too long and the tip has gotten very hot before, that solder will be oxidized and will hardly stick to anything. Thus, add more fresh solder. In addition to that, always add extra flux to the solder joints you want to work on (be it paste or gel flux). Rosin (R) or Rosin Mildly Activated (RMA) is the type of flux you should be using. DO NOT USE plumber's flux (i.e. fully activated flux) - this stuff is very corrosive and will eat your board traces away.