The AM Forum

man, I hate vacuum solder removers. Always been a solder-wick dude, always will be.

What do you like and why?

note: talking about typical old point to point radio work, not smt or PC board.

I use the heat-and-flick method........  works FB on the small stuff.............

Keep the shoes tied and feet inside, under the bench.... it hurts


klc

you're not doing it right unless you've got solder in the carpet and curtains!

"you're not doing it right unless you've got solder in the carpet and curtains!"

or on the cat!

Fun topic.
Use the melt and bang-it-hard on something tactic for stuff like pot terminals if they're un-mounted.

Use melt and blow for stuff thats already mounted.
Use wick for PC board stuff larger than SMT.

What's really hard is to de-mount stuff with more than 2 pins. The ol' "melt one, rock it a bit, melt the other, rock some more" works when your too lazy to dig out the wick or use other methods of doing it right.

Never do something the right way when you can try the hard and dirty way first!;D  (anon)

I gots a little Red Sucker Bulb I've used for years...careful with the heat and flick...Eyes are non-replaceable...I guess you could get a transplant...I dunno..be careful....

The cat is too smart to be around hot things that he can't eat.....


klc

Not sure  ::) but I thunk this is a technoid topic, not a QSO topic?

But, I vastly prefer a good spring loaded vacuum sucker over wick. I rarely have been able to get wick to properly wick, it usually just gets hot and causes the foil on the board to lift, without taking enough solder off... must be something wrong with my technique??

I bought a used Weller power desoldering station, but that worked like carp... I expected that a power suck with a hole in the heating part would be just the thing, but at least this one isn't/wasn't what I expected it to be...  :-\  :'(

             _-_-bear

I enjoy both modes of Desoldering. Melt and bang or use my trusty Soldapullit tool. The Pace solder sucker sucks and I have never mastered the Wick. It has never worked for me.

Fred

"I rarely have been able to get wick to properly wick, it usually just gets hot and causes the foil on the board to lift, without taking enough solder off... must be something wrong with my technique??"

I used to have the same trouble. What I came up with was taking a little solder paste on my finger and wiping it on the wick. Seems to make the solder just flow right into the wick.

About the eyes...I wear regular glasses all the time. However I wear prescription safety glasses at work all day. During the week I just don't change them when I get home before I go into the shop. They are slightly different in shape and "close-up" area so I don't try to adjust for a few hours in the evening. Having said that, I have found solder on the glasses after a particularly messy session. The glasses, both safety and regular, have saved me injury several times over the years.

phred,

I used to work for PACE when I was a little JN back in the 80's.

This works fine business here at W1UJR.

Hakko Desoldering Station
(http://www.tequipment.net/ProductImages/Hakko/470B_station_mid.jpg)
www.hakko.com/english/index.html

No solder on the floor, walls, carpet, or cat (no cat here).
Also works nicely on those multiple lead turn joints that Collins loves.
Just touch, 5 seconds later pull the trigger, and you have a solder free joint with no damage to components, or to your prized ocular input devices.

Perfect for this
(http://www.w1ujr.net/Gross%20Radio/DSC01971_small.jpg)


Let's You Go From this
(http://www.w1ujr.net/Bruce's%20Bench/DSC01306_small.jpg)

To this
(http://www.w1ujr.net/Utah%20Jr%20Restore/DSC01559_small.jpg)


Which leads to this
(http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:in0rhVjJ5r8ejM:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Smile_fasdfdsfoiueire.svg/498px-Smile_fasdfdsfoiueire.svg.png)

I'm a de-slobbering iron kinda dude myself, even with pre-PCB gear (which is pretty much my entire shack). Never had good results with braid.

Mind you, using a seperate iron and sucker bulb isn't very effective. Too much cargo in small areas. The sucker irons are a one-handed affair and remove far more slag than a seperate bulb.

I have a shadio rack 45W slobber sucking iron that's a good 20 years old at least. Works dandy on eyelets, posts, and printed circuits. Just squeeze the bulb, apply the iron, wait for the solder to melt (plus a half a second or so), release the bulb, point the iron at a non-porous surface, and squee the slobber back out again. You might still have a bit of surface tension, but another quick touch with the iron will break that while you remove the conductor in question.

My high-school sweetheart used to go around picking up all the slobber splats from the floor around my bench. She was easily amused by shiny things.  8)

The bulb is starting to crack around the base from age, heat, and use; but still works okay-fine for me.

To each his own, I guess.

I'm with Thom....

I use a rat-shack sucker... 

If you do get into through-hole components, you can blow the hole clean....

For SMD I use wick... (I know, Derb, you said point-to-point....) but I threw it in anyway....

I'm a big one for the old blue Edson Sold-R-Pulit. But sometimes, it won't get that last fry of solder. That is when I use the wick. I gots me a nice PACE station that I scored at Timonium for $25. It didn't have a vacuum pump but that wasn't a problem since we replace them regularly on our CO analyzer. I got a neat one to do the job. I wonder if the PACE station was hot, (even though it wasn't plugged in) ;)

I probably either built, inspected, or worked with engineering on improvements on your Pace unit. I worked on the smt line and the "big blue" cased units. The SMT units are wimpy IMO, but the blue cased units have a GE carbon vane motor that will suck pads off a poorly made board. They REALLY SUCK.  ::)

Why would you need a solder sucker or wick when you can just use a JS clip lead?

Derb, mine is a silver and black unit IIRC. It essentially is nothing more than a temperature controller for the iron and desoldering iron. It has a port in the back for a vaccuum. The vaccuum pump I have can pull it down to roughly 0.6 PSIA.

Steve said:
Heh, heh.  :D

I have the same unit. Of all of the solder removal devices I have used over the years, this works the best.

I was really lucky in obtaining mine; my boss gave it to me.

He's a great guy!

73,

Bruce

Yep for sure - if you aint got a Hakko you probably still think wick works best.

The pace cant be kept clear long enough and it the power that it sucks with sucks.

My 474 follows every desolder with good volume suction sound right after its ripped all the solder right offa the joint.

I use a Hakko at work and home.

I dunno I always thought some of those systems are overkill but i guess if one is spending a great deal of time tearing down and component replacement I guess there's a Place..for the average workshop naaaa.

Another service problem waiting to happen, because of intermittent useage...i dunno...

I use one of the spring loaded Suckers.  Works ok fine, as long as the solder is truely molten.

Wick works ok, but requires flux (In my experience) to be on it to really pull the solder off.

For me it depends on the situation.  I'll use the sucker, braid, bang-it, compressed air or wire method.

The sucker can be a pain  to use at times. I find injecting it with silicone helps the slober eject very easily. Without the extra slickum I'd throw that tool against the wall.

Braid I find works best with a little extra rosin for big stuff but otherwise works good for small PCB work.  I usually puff up the braid by wiggling the end of it a bit before hitting joint.

Bang-it speaks for itself.

Compressed air I use for desoldering boards I don't give a crap about.  It's messy but gets the job done.

Wire method I use for surface mount components.

I use the heat and thump method.....but for multi-leaded components, like IC's, I hold a straw in my mouth and blast it with a shot of breath when the solder melts.

Soldersucker: It drinks the solder from the joint, or it gets the iron again.

I use the vacuuuum,Derb. It's a nice Pace unit. But ya gotta keep'em clean.
I clean mine every time I turn it on. Been working for 15 years now.
A good assortment of tips is critical. The right tip make the job.

I use about every method imaginable both for point-to-point wiring and PC boards: heat and bang, suck and wick.  I have a couple of those spring loaded suckers made in Sweden, that I bought back in the early 80's.  The first thing I always did was to cut off the rod that goes through the nozzle, supposedly to keep it cleared out.  Mine would always jam with solder and push the nozzle off when I tried to use it, so I just cut the extension off with wire cutters, and manually clear the nozzle when necessaly, usually with a small Allen wrench.

I sometimes use both wick and the sucker in stubborn cases.

I'm hoping I can find one of the mid 80's PACE blue top units at a fester someday. The GE carbon vane motor in those things is a wonderous thing. it wouls b cool if I could find one with my own inspectors stamp & number on it. I was inspectore #12.  :D

I use all. wick, spring-vacuum tool, and Hakko or equivlent electic vacuum desolderer.

I have used the hot air systems with nozzles for the SMT postage stamps and also a handheld resistance soldering tool but I did not care much for that. The best electic vacuum model I had required 60PSI air and used a venturi to make vacuum. Lots of it. It would suck and slurp the molten solder till it was gone and was perfect for double sided through-hole and plated through-hole. sold-r-vac or something, was in the 1980's.

I used one of those big blue Sold-a-pult suckers until a couple years ago when it took an unexpected trip across the radio room and met a wall as a result of a...reflex reaction. Yeah, that's it. Never had good luck with the wick as it seemed to involve dragging it around to and fro at times to get it to work, or having it suck away heat in order to work properly. Then there was my Scottish blood, which prefers not to throw money away on stuff that will get thrown away. The -pult was reusable for years, just cock and go with the occasional emptying and cleaning required. Solder wick gets thrown out and you gotta buy more.

Never tried one of the vacuum solder stations but intend to. Many good reports on how well they function along with speeding up the process.

I got my mil cert on wick. Vacuum may have ESD issues. I don't think the production people here use them any more. not an issue with tubes though

I sometime use a solder-sucker to remove large blobs of excess solder, such as left-over low-temp solder when removing a big IC.  I use wick to remove smaller amounts.

guess i should have specified  a non motorized vacuum unit. I meant the blue sod-a-pult  units.

Those spring loaded suckers are ESD generators

One thing I don't like about the spring-loaded thingies is that they tend to get little solder bits all over the place.  If they are ESD generators, that's another negative.

1/4" wick is nice for removing large amounts of solder, but I feel like I'm wasting wick material.  That's why I would use the spring boingie sucker.  I would not have expected an ESD issue with the sucker, because the moving parts are mostly metal (except for the plastic ones).  Now I'm glad mine have mostly fallen apart.  I guess I'll stock up on 1/4" wick.

wide flux works even better with a little flux.

Not only that, wide wick works better with a little wick.  ;)

Heh heh, yes, I add flux to the wick, because it helps it soak up that solder.

another trick is touch a little solder on the back side of the wick to transfer heat faster. This tins it and will give a better connection to the iron.
I use a straight pin to clear component holes on planes rather than getting it too hot. A ground plane with a via I sometimes take a small PCB drill and drill out the solder to avoid overheating.

Yes, sometimes just a little bit of solder in the wick makes a better thermal connection and also helps start the flow from the board into the wick.

Most of the time when i need to desolder stuff, i try to heat it up then drop the iron and pull the lead out before the solder cools again. Or i get tired of that and just get the wire cutters and snip the lead.
Shelby KB3OUK

When I would strip old hollow state color tv sets for their parts that were on pc boards,I would use the following procedure.Affter stripping off the heavy components from the chassis I would  flip the chassis upside down and wave the Burnz-O-matic prophane fart gass torch over the PC board until it started smoking. I would then drop the chassis on the floor. Many of the components would drop out. I would repeat the procedure until no more components would drop. other than that all other methods on this thead are used here.
Tim WA1HnyLR

A lot of times the type of solder tip makes the difference in making solder wick perform well. I find a screwdriver or flat tip works better than a conical or thin point tip.  I imagine that there is better heat transfer to the wick and the extra tip mass helps.

I agree Bob. Larger tip is much more efficient heating the joint and wick.

REAL MEN suck up the molten solder by mouth !!  Nothing like the taste of hot molten solder !! AhhhhRRrrrrr

Careful, John. Telling a joke on this thread might get your post pulled.  :(

Only if the joke violates the clearly stated rules. :o

I be a vacuum tool remover kinda guy; because I have two of them and it's what I've become accustomed to. I've tried the solder wick method and haven't had the same results as with the vacuum tool. It's probably beacuse I've grown acccutomed to one method over the other.

If the shoe fits with one method over another you wear it!

Regards,
           Joe Cro N3IBX

John,
       Would one who uses the method you described be called a "Lead Head"? - hi hi!

       Personally, I prefer solder fumes over the taste. I become aroused to do more work whilst sniffing the fumes!

Ha !! I feel the same way. Actually since I was a kid I always loved the bittersweet smell of the hot rosin core smoke.  Anytime I smell that hot rosin I always get the inspiration to heat up the iron and start working on one of my old boatanchors... ot to build something.

Fortunately I still have several full rolls of the good old lead/tin solder. It should last me a while. I'm not too keen on this newer lead free stuff. I hear that its more prone to bad solder connections.