Desoldering
I tried my hand at desoldering not long ago, and I couldn't do it at all...
I laid the braid across the joint and heated the joint up through the braid, but it didn't soak into the braid at all...
Can it be that my soldering iron is too cheap (and so maybe not hot enough)?
Can it be that the braid is too old (I bought it from maplin around August time)?
I laid the braid across the joint and heated the joint up through the braid, but it didn't soak into the braid at all...
Can it be that my soldering iron is too cheap (and so maybe not hot enough)?
Can it be that the braid is too old (I bought it from maplin around August time)?
Post edited by wilsonsamm on
Comments
A drop of solder on the tip will make sure you have thermal contact between the tip and the braid.
Note that desoldering chips using solder braid is difficult because there is always a little bit of solder that doesn't quite clear from at least three or four of the pins (and in the case of SMD doesn't work at all, in fact solder braid is used just to remove excess solder and any bridges). For desoldering ICs (especially on wave soldered boards that have absolutely masses of solder) I do a pass with the desoldering braid to eliminate the majority of the solder, then I use hot air to finally remove the chip I want to remove. (If it's a PCB that I don't care about, I skip the solder braid stage).
putting some solder onto the soldering iron to *desolder*? Wow! I didn't know that! Well I will try it this weekend :-)
Thank you for advice.