Neat trick for desoldering many-pin components

I just came across this and thought I’d share. I’ve struggled to get headers and IC’s off boards after soldering them on backwards/upside down. This video shows a cool trick with a piece of copper wire that makes them very easy and quick to get off without expensive tooling. I was thoroughly impressed. Hope someone else finds this useful too.

Sir_Kevin,
@Sir_Kevin@discuss.online avatar

I was ready to shit on this but I could definetely see some uses when there are a lot of through hole pins. I’d be a little worried about keeping the heat distribution even though.

naonintendois,

I thought it might be useful to move the iron back and forth a little for long rows. Wouldn’t be perfectly even but would be better than concentrating heat in the center.

Rolive,

Well the copper should disperse the heat fairly quickly. It should be okay.

skillissuer,
@skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

this only works well if you have good soldermask in place

lxpw,

I picked up a Hakko desoldering gun many years ago to save me from this. It was pricey (~$300), but has been worth it over the years.

naonintendois,

This trick might be more useful for people who are budget constrained. In the past I’ve resorted to cutting the plastic between the headers (making them unusable), so this is a nice alternative without the need for another tool. If budget wasn’t an issue I’d likely buy a much nicer iron and an extra wide knife-style tip.

Saigonauticon,

Haha, I’ve done that too. However sometimes it rips the pads off or otherwise damages the vias. So instead I cut them along the other axis (parallel to the PCB), then remove the remaining nibs.

These days I mostly use a hot air rework station though. In my city this is integrated with many soldering stations on the market, for maybe an extra 10$. I think mine is Yihua brand, it’s quite OK.

deksesuma,

Same. It’s been a lifesaver and a confidence booster because I know I can more easily recover from mistakes.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • askelectronics@discuss.tchncs.de
  • localhost
  • All magazines
  • 200 @ entry_single
    HTTP status 200 OK
    Route name entry_single
    Has session yes
    Stateless Check no
    Time 509 ms
    Total time 509 ms
    Initialization time 58 ms
    Memory 14.0 MiB
    Peak memory usage 14.0 MiB
    PHP memory limit 128 MiB
    Cache 1
    Number of forms 1
    Number of errors 0
    Logger 92
    Errors 0
    Warnings 0
    Deprecations 92
    Cache 88 in 221.66 ms
    Cache Calls 88
    Total time 221.66 ms
    Cache hits 39 / 83 (46.99%)
    Cache writes 33
    640
    Default locale en
    Missing messages 640
    Fallback messages 0
    Defined messages 149
    Security n/a
    Authenticated No
    Firewall name main
    Twig 317 ms
    Render Time 317 ms
    Template Calls 161
    Block Calls 82
    Macro Calls 6
    111 in 246 ms
    settings_row_switch 15
    user_avatar 13
    date 11
    user_inline 10
    date_edited 9
    vote 9
    boost 9
    entry_comment 8
    entry_comments_nested 8
    user_settings_row_switch 4
    settings_row_enum 2
    entry 1
    entries_cross 1
    editor_toolbar 1
    user_actions 1
    magazine_box 1
    magazine_sub 1
    related_magazines 1
    active_users 1
    related_categories 1
    related_posts 1
    related_entries 1
    support_us_block 1
    featured_magazines 1
    29 in 147.80 ms
    Database Queries 29
    Different statements 19
    Query time 147.80 ms
    Invalid entities 0
    Cache hits 24
    Cache misses 9
    Cache puts 9
    6.4.0
    Profiler token 37a142
    Environment dev
    Debug enabled
    PHP version 8.2.26   View phpinfo()
    PHP Extensions Xdebug ✗ APCu ✓ OPcache ✓
    PHP SAPI apache2handler