Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

[Wolvenmoon]

Okay, so I have a dead monitor and am still juggling having it repaired versus doing it myself. I decided a pivotal moment between DIY and sending it in would be if I could desolder components from a PCB quickly and successfully ( no visible damage ).

So I broke out my setup, collected several years ago via Christmas presents to venture into case modding:

Radio shack 25W pen iron
Radio shack solder sucker, http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=2062745
and a set of helping hands, http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=3928375

As soon as I plugged it in, I knew I was going to regret it. Hahaha.

Now, we'll ignore the fact that I broke out some of my off brand lead free solder ( I have radio shack brand leaded solder for "PC work" as well, considering discarding it and ordering from digikey along with caps ) and that almost went well, surprisingly enough. Was still pretty bad but if it weren't for my tired hands slipping and dragging my tinned tip across the PCB and smearing solder all over the place, I would have called it a win.


My [s]target[/s] victim board was an Intel 56K modem I whipped out of my closet.

The next half hour was spent carefully concentrating on two pins and attempting to do the technique seen in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Vb_Q17euo and this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw4lZGk90i4

After a half hour, I picked the board up off the table and put it in the helping hands. No luck. I eventually grabbed a paper clip, jammed two quarters in it, bent it to form a weight, and jammed it under the component then used my iron to grind against the leads and push them out.

Then I tried to use the solder sucker to clean the holes to put the component back in...that lasted all of 2 minutes, before I jammed the iron in one end and the sucker/wannabe-onager-and-well-on-its-way-to-being-one in the other. This worked.



Now, this is the second round I've gone with these tools and the second time I've been really frustrated. The first time was with some white LEDs I wanted to desolder. I eventually ended grabbing the LEDs with pliers and shoving them out with the soldering iron.


I'm wondering about the following:

-What should I honestly expect from myself with these tools and as a novice? Like, what's normal skill progression?

-Is my iron powerful enough to even be considering desoldering?

-Should I have gone for a better solder sucker or is the one I have workable for desoldering from a PCB?

-Is attempting to solder with carpal/cubital tunnel syndrome ( both, really spinal injury but those explain my symptoms ) feasible?

-Why the heck did I get these 'helping hands'? I spent more time trying to tighten them with needle nosers than I did using them, it seems!

[yyonline]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

25W is on the low end for motherboard work. It should be fine for a modem.

I've never had any luck with the spring-loaded solder suckers. I have a vacuum desoldering tool that works well. For field repairs when I don't have the desoldering tool available, I use a stainless steel dental pick to clear the holes. Dental picks are available in most craft and hobby shops. Solder won't stick to stainless. So you heat up the hole, pull the component out. Then you heat the solder left in the hole and stick the sharp end of the dental pick in it. Let it cool down for a few seconds, and remove the dental pick. This should leave you with a big enough hole to put the new component through. It doesn't completely clear the hole, and you're mixing old and new solder, but it's probably the easiest technique for clearing through holes for beginners.

I have the helping hands, too. They're quite useful for soldering wires together. I've never used them for circuit board work.

[Wolvenmoon]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

It's going to be used on a monitor power board, I just grabbed the modem to practice my technique and not worry about burnt PCB. Good news was I didn't burn the PCB. Bad news was at the end I tried to burn the PCB. It's worked fine to stick wires together and attach things to button/switch terminals, but man it's not shining here.

I'll look at getting a stainless steel dental pick. I've wanted one for awhile to fetch the pesky screws that fall under and behind a motherboard in a case, along with a mirror-on-a-pole. (It doesn't get much worse than that, when you're putting in the screw to close the case and you hear that clattering...)

[Uranium-235]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

I've seen monitor power boards that aren't rohs, and actually have good, easy solder. with my hakko 808 the caps just fall out after I solder-suck them

[mockingbird]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Monitor power boards are single layer, a 25W should be plenty.

I have had success using 25w/35w on multi-layered PCBs by using acid-based flux. Of course I clean the flux afterwards with a cotton swab.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Vice the dental pick I use an exacto knife handle with a large SS needle chucked in.
Make sure the handle is one with an metal collet.
The cheap ones have plastic collets and that won't work.

Don't use acid core solder, use rosin core.
Don't use big solder. Get something like .020-.025 inch diameter.
Get some fluxed solder braid just in case.

Usually beginners burn traces by having the iron on the joint too LONG, and not because the iron is too 'hot'. [Which is usually the first assumption.] PCB material doesn't conduct heat quickly but time will heat it up. A hotter iron will minimize -time- on the joint by heating to solder to melting before the PCB material has time to heat up.
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[Wolvenmoon]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

It might be that this iron is enough for the monitor board, but back when I was working these LEDs off of one of those cheap 3xtriple A battery LED flashlights, it was arduous there too. I need to be able to practice successfully a bit before I take it to something mission critical.

I expected the board to start turning funny colors after I had it on it for a good 15 seconds trying to get the area heated up so I could slip the darn solder sucker in and get something from it. Not quite. I suppose this says that Intel's 56K modems were pretty much indestructible. In light of this fact I highly recommend them as fire proofing material.


I meant to order fluxed solder braid from digikey and I've already placed my order. Any recommendations?

I've found someone local that can do it and is willing to answer questions and show me his gear. But, as there seem to be many equal ways to do this I'm going to try them all - budget permitting - and see which one works best for me.

[smason]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

It's all about technique, and having enough heat.
25w *should* be enough for most work, though not big hefty power supplies or motherboards. I find spring-loaded sucker works really well, if it's clean, others can't stand 'em. There's no one right way, so try a few methods, find what works for you.

When I work on monitors, when I desolder caps, most of them fall right off the board when I suck the second lead. Dont use lead-free solder. Keep your tip clean and tinned, add a bit of solder to the component lead, then apply the sucker.
Take your time, and practice.
Check your sucker, put it against your finger and push the button, it shouldn't move till you remove your finger, then it shoud release. If not, clean the o-ring and maybe put a bit of grease on it.

[Evil Lurker]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Ok. Being into this hobby only for a few months now, I had to learn how to solder.

Let me explain it to you how soldering works. Its not so much about how hot your tip is or how many watts your iron puts out, its all about how fast can you transfer the heat to the joint. Basically the idear is to melt the solder at the joint faster than the heat can conduct up into the component your soldering and fubar it.

There are two things that will absolutely knock your iron's proverbial dick into the dirt... the first of which is oxidation. Oxidation acts as an insulator between your tip and the joint... simply put if it's there you will not be able to transfer heat fast enough to liquify the joint before you cook the component. Over time just about every soldered connection will develop an oxidation layer and your iron tip will get literally unusable in a matter of minutes. If you want good soldered joints you have to keep the tip pristeen!

The next biggest pain is RoHS compliant lead free stuff. I'm not exactly for sure what this is, but I do know one thing... it can take one hell of an iron to liquify it. Heck for craps and giggles I've even melted a few junk boards to the point of them catching on fire and they still were solid as a rock. Simply put, if at all possible stay the hell away from lead free solder.

To combat the oxidation problem there are various tip cleaners out there and most importantly flux. Usually when I go to do a joint I dob just a little flux on it, clean my iron tip, put just a tiny little bit of solder on it, and touch it to the wire of the component when soldering and to the puddle when desoldering. I try and put just enough solder on the tip that as soon as you touch the joint it practically leaps off the tip and onto the component.

Also, those helping hands are crap. For desoldering get yourself a vice and line the jaws with foam or other material to act as a cushion for the PCB. Grab the component with one hand while holding your iron or pump with the other hand then touch, suck, wiggle, and yank. Sometimes you will get pin that will stick to the side of the hole... just take your regular iron and knock em loose.

Anyhoos, the most important tool is experience, and the only way you can get that is by practicing.

Hope this helps.

[Wolvenmoon]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

The "O" ring does not appear to be creating a seal on the sucker, now that I examine it. Shifting it around and tightening/retightening it is not doing the trick. Just so I don't accidentally set something on fire, grease what, where, and what with?


With the iron, I have a sponge and then a metal scouring pad to clean it off with. I did buy a new tip to replace the original one but I haven't put it on yet. I really am running down to the wire here, and before my monitor broke I was financially chewing off a hand to save a leg.

[cmj21973]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Use plumber's silicone grease and teflon tape.

Take sucker apart and check o-rings. If they're cracked, brittle, or loose get new ones. Else, grease all o-rings, mine (C&S Sales) has two on the piston and one on tip. Use plumber's teflon tape on both threads.

All can be found at Lowes or local plumbing/hardware store.

[Agent24]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

A cheap 25 watt iron is fine for single layer boards, if it doesn't work then most likely you're doing something wrong.

Make sure the iron tip is clean always, burnt flux etc on the tip will seriously impair heat transfer.

Old solder joints on old devices aren't very clean either, you can generally clean them up by heating and adding fresh solder (the flux in the fresh solder helps) or you can add your own flux paste\liquid too.

Adding new solder also creates a 'heat bridge' - some solder which thermally connects the tip of the iron to the joint. This transfers the heat much better than just holding the tip against the joint.

Probably it's worth reading through http://www.circuitrework.com/guides/7-1-1.shtml carefully

[smason]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

The "O" ring does not appear to be creating a seal on the sucker, now that I examine it. Shifting it around and tightening/retightening it is not doing the trick. Just so I don't accidentally set something on fire, grease what, where, and what with?

I use vaseline, maybe do it once a year. Seems to work well, my Soldapullt is 25ish years old.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Vaseline is petroleum based and, although in liquid or jell form it won't burn, the fumes are flammable.

Use silicon grease intended for o'rings.
Like this:
http://www.hakkousa.com/detail.asp?PID=1461&Page=1
Might also find something suitable at an auto parts store.
.
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[ratdude747]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

i have a vellman all aluninum sucker. i lube it with silicone spray... keeps it nice, quick, and sealed. however, the stock o rings swell with the silicone so i swapped them for new ones... and the e clip on the internal emd of the thumb plunger kept snapping (and shooting the plunger into my face) so i wrapped the groove with wire and soldered it. to clear plugs i use a chopped off bike spoke (14 gauge iirc).

i also sanded the edge of the metal tube by the plunger... out of the factory it will cut you thumb.

i do not reccomend silicone grease... i know from maintaining bike pumps that you have to use a light lubricant to keep it quick and light action... grease is too thick, hence why silicone spray is the preferred lube.

as to why it the stock rings swellled up and jammed, my guess is poor rubber... new ones from ace hardware didn't do that and fixed it up.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

The spray is too low a viscosity for the application unless you just like lubing it more often than you need to. [Same with the pumps.]

As you discovered with the stock o'ring in your sucker there is more than one o'ring material and using the proper lubricant matters if you want it to last.

Those orings swoll-up because they weren't compatible with the lubricant you used on them. That doesn't make them 'cheap parts'.
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[Sparkey55]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

What might work is Mobil One Synthetic Gear Lube 90W, I use it on fan bearings and other stuff too.

[ratdude747]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

The spray is too low a viscosity for the application unless you just like lubing it more often than you need to. [Same with the pumps.]

As you discovered with the stock o'ring in your sucker there is more than one o'ring material and using the proper lubricant matters if you want it to last.

Those orings swoll-up because they weren't compatible with the lubricant you used on them. That doesn't make them 'cheap parts'.
.

hmm... i meant that the parts were not what they should have been. from the factory they came dry and didn't work all that well... lubrication made them quicker and seal better.

the reason i don't like motor oil or grease is that the oil is a bit thick and is not safe for rubber. the grease is way too thick and slows the piston. it needs to be quick to effectively move solder... solder is heavy and too slow of an action just ripples the solder, not suck it out of the hole (mind out of the gutter here). i know that bicycle floor pumps use a similar mechanism (aluminum tube with a rubber sealed piston) and they are lubed with spray liquid silicone...

as for spray being high maintenance, I have fount that it holds pretty well. if i ever notice it slowing up and clogs are not why, then i empty it out like i normally do and then give it a good spray and a few pumps to coat things... works for me.

[Wolvenmoon]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

On my radio shack one...I have lost the manual and there is not one online. Anyone else have one of them and know how to get at the back end of it to check the seals there? (Previous sentence added after the rest of the post was typed. I decided to give it a hard twist because 'what they hey, it's broken already' and pop! I still can't figure out how to get the tip out of it though.)

I think mine may have been DOA, as it is pre-lubed and still has this issue. I'm thinking I'm just going to replace it with something else.

This has to be one of the coolest discussions I've been in in awhile though. Most places I get 'one right answer', here I'm getting 5 different workable answers.

Ratdude, do keep your mind out of the gutter. We cannot let a discussion about the proper lubrication and sealing of liquified metal pump suckers' O-rings and pistons turn dirty.

[Agent24]

Re: Is it my soldering equipment too or just me?

Mine has a kind of screw\nut that holds the tip in place. You can remove it with a flathead screwdriver.