Ant wrote: ↑Mon Sep 25, 2017 10:06 pm
Also, is a solder wick a better bet for desoldering parts from a pcb than a solder sucker? It was a bit of a pig to get some of the caps out, p'raps some of our repair tech trained guys can elaborate on beat practice for this kind of thing. Cant imagine it'd be all that easy to desolder one of the large IC's with a sucker tbh
What I've found is...
IMO braid/wick is an alternative to use if the desolder pump isn't removing enough solder and the joint is still manky. I've worked with Technicians that can't stand it, and others that have worked wonders with it, there's a knack to using it correctly.
One of the dangers of using braid is that it can lift the track of the PCB if you've left the iron on it for too long, but if you haven't held it on for long enough... then the solder wont flow into the braid. Its a knack. Maybe practise on an old PCB 1st before tackling the CD player?
Sometimes feeding new fresh solder into a stubborn joint/pin then desoldering again works wonders IME.
If you do buy braid, keep it in an air tight bag, it's way more efficient when its fresh and not oxidised.
Also, if you want to remove a many-legged component that you don't need anymore, sacrifice it, cut its legs off (and thats coming from a veggie!), remove its body then you can just work on removing each pin cleanly by using a thin tip on the iron and using a thin non-heat conductive pointy thing to form a pincer type motion to remove the pin from the PCB from the component side of the PCB .
Thats what works for me.