OK, 480C should be plenty. Though, a warning - not all soldering stations that can be set to 480C can actually maintain that temperature when applied to a large thermal mass.
I have had cheapo soldering tips that disintegrated in lead-free, you might want to try something different. (That ugly blob looks exactly like my first foray into the sadistic hell that is lead-free solder, so I think that's what you've got. Either way, the stuff already on the board is definitely lead free.) I use Kester 44 (eutectic) - don't gasp too much at the price, remember, that's a full pound of it. It's a bit thicker than what Dave and company recommend, but I like it.
Either type of flux will work, and I find both equally convenient, so just get whatever you think you'll prefer. I think you'll find that a lot of things magically start working better with a liberal application of flux ![ThumbsUp :-+](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/icon_smile_thumbsup.gif.pagespeed.ce._JElyJQqdB.gif)
Being how difficult it was to melt the solder already on the board for desoldering, you're probably right that it's lead-free. I watched a number of how-to videos on how to desolder PBCs and it seemed pretty easy but maybe they were working with lead solder on those joints. The only other two possibilities would be heat from my iron not making contact with the joint or my cheap desoldering pump. Also I'll try that Kester 44 solder out, thanks for the tip.
Kester 44 is excellent solder, I've used it for many many years. There are several things that can be wrong but start with the solder (and I don't mean the solder on the pcb). Can you melt solder you have on hand with your iron? Does the solder smoke? Is the tip silver with solder and is the solder clinging to the surface of the iron? If the solder does not smoke it's not flux cored, if the soldering iron tip is not holding solder and a nice silver colour it's dirty.
Use your solder as a tool, apply a fresh bit to an already soldered joint to get the melting action started. Be quick no "flux smoke" means that you need to speed up. Adding extra flux is good but most professionals I know just use solder unless working on surface mount stuff and then they tend to use other tools (like hot air) to get the job done.
Get in the habit clean tip, fresh solder on tip, if the soldering iron ends up back in its stand then clean tip and retin the tip.
If I apply fresh solder to most of my tips, it will melt and smoke. The ones that show signs of being oxidized have trouble melting fresh solder and none will stick to it. I'll try your advice on adding more solder to a joint to melt it. Would there be any issues with mixing lead solder with lead-free simply for the purpose of trying to get the join molten for desoldering? Also from what I'm reading here buying some supplemental flux to have on hand for such situations will be very useful. I see there's many different types of fluxes available. Which would you recommend for a decent all purpose flux?
I think that the black around the solder gives it away (looks like soot), your iron is too hot and you are applying heat to the area for far too long. This usually comes down to not enough or no flux, placing the iron to one side in order to see the solder ( a mistake made by many beginners) you should place the tip firmly on top of the joint and not keeping the soldering iron tip clean and not cleaning the joint before hand (there could easily be a coating put over the board after soldering in the factory). Also check that your solder is flux cored I have seen people try to solder with plumbers solder that does not contain flux cores.
I was placing my iron on the side of these joints for that very purpose, so I'll be sure to correct that. How can I place the iron firmly on top of joints with tall leads though? Also my solder does have a flux core but I'll be upgrading to some better stuff soon.
Practice practice practice is what you need, I'm willing to bet everyone in the forum hacked something as badly as that when they started off.
Grab some boards that are total scrap, watch a bunch of relevant youtube vids then remove and replace components until you are competent.
Indeed, this board I'm working on came from a broken amplifier that I was trying to repair, and I have a few old PCI cards that I'm practicing on. Oddly enough, desoldering some of these old PCI cards worked out really well for me while this amplifier was much harder. Perhaps they used lead solder on them.
Nobody spotted that this looks like a computer motherboard with multilayer thick copper ? And he's trying to replace the capacitors ? You can see what looks like the staggered pins of a pci connector top right of the picture.
So, This board is probably 2 ounce copper ground and power planes... So you will need a soldering iron with a high wattage to be able to heat the damn thing to melting point ! Cranking up temperature is not the correct way ! The poor soldering iron simply doesnt have the -oopf- to get that 'heatsink' up to temperature
The board I'm working on in the photos actually came from a broken mini amplifier and components I removed so far are two LEDs and a dual gang volume potentiomoter.
About desoldering. This is one from a series.
And I think you realy need to look at this series about soldering and repair. Also from Pace and made in the 80's but it tells you all the things you need to know and you will see it handles all the mistakes you now made.
Most important are a good soldering station at the right temp, with the right tip, that also can hold this temp on boards like yours. .
Good solder and sometimes flux.
The right technique,
Knowing and recognising the board and construction.
I think your board is dead. All solderpads are missing and probably the vias too. So the innerlayers will now be floating
Thanks, I'll take a look at those soldering training videos. As for the board, I figured it's probably dead but it was broken to begin with so that's not a problem.
Oh my god!
Not to sound like a jerk, but you really butchered that board. It's probably trash. Or at least it's going to be a bitch to repair, and without kicking you while you are down, if your skills and equipment are such that this is your result, I don't think you are going to be able to repair it.
Solder is not magic stuff - nor does it require flux to melt. It does require flux to flow and stick nicely, but it will melt without it. If it is not melting, the joint is not coming up to temperature. Turning up the heat on your iron isn't the solution. Fixing the heat *transfer* issue is the solution. I am guessing
-Your iron is not capable of maintaining temperature well. I know you said it's an $80 iron, but an iron of that price is made for about $8 in parts and sold to a reseller for $25, so it's not likely to really be that high quality.
-Most likely, I bet you are using the wrong tip. I looked up your iron online. Look at this picture
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/710JxEv7QeL._SX466_.jpg
You need to be using the middle tip - a relatively blunt chisel. That board has lots of copper pours which will suck the heat away quickly and prevent the solder from reaching melting temp. You are going nuts with a red hot iron and all that does is locally burn the shit out of the soldermark and traces - and the result is the pic you posted.
To make this work
1) Use the right tip
2) Have your iron set to the right temp
3) Apply liberal amounts of flux so when it does melt, it flows
4) Use an iron that can maintain temp and deliver the heat into the joint
5) Make sure your tip is in good shape
6) PRE HEAT the board!!!! Use a cheap skillet from Walmart to raise the board to 150-200 degrees (F) over ambient, and voila, you just unloaded 150-200 degrees of heating work from your iron
And to put the dickhead hat on again in closing, seriously, if things start to go to shit, next time STOP and figure out what's wrong and fix it, or you'll end up with that mess again!
This is just one of several old and broken boards I had lying around so I'm using these to practice on. I'll keep all that in mind though. If it's true that this iron isn't capable of maintaining temperature well, would you recommend upgrading to one that can or will proper tip maintenance and technique suffice for now?
OK, 480C should be plenty. Though, a warning - not all soldering stations that can be set to 480C can actually maintain that temperature when applied to a large thermal mass.
I have had cheapo soldering tips that disintegrated in lead-free, you might want to try something different. (That ugly blob looks exactly like my first foray into the sadistic hell that is lead-free solder, so I think that's what you've got. Either way, the stuff already on the board is definitely lead free.) I use Kester 44 (eutectic) - don't gasp too much at the price, remember, that's a full pound of it. It's a bit thicker than what Dave and company recommend, but I like it.
Either type of flux will work, and I find both equally convenient, so just get whatever you think you'll prefer. I think you'll find that a lot of things magically start working better with a liberal application of flux ![ThumbsUp :-+](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/icon_smile_thumbsup.gif.pagespeed.ce._JElyJQqdB.gif)
Being how difficult it was to melt the solder already on the board for desoldering, you're probably right that it's lead-free. I watched a number of how-to videos on how to desolder PBCs and it seemed pretty easy but maybe they were working with lead solder on those joints. The only other two possibilities would be heat from my iron not making contact with the joint or my cheap desoldering pump. Also I'll try that Kester 44 solder out, thanks for the tip.
Kester 44 is excellent solder, I've used it for many many years. There are several things that can be wrong but start with the solder (and I don't mean the solder on the pcb). Can you melt solder you have on hand with your iron? Does the solder smoke? Is the tip silver with solder and is the solder clinging to the surface of the iron? If the solder does not smoke it's not flux cored, if the soldering iron tip is not holding solder and a nice silver colour it's dirty.
Use your solder as a tool, apply a fresh bit to an already soldered joint to get the melting action started. Be quick no "flux smoke" means that you need to speed up. Adding extra flux is good but most professionals I know just use solder unless working on surface mount stuff and then they tend to use other tools (like hot air) to get the job done.
Get in the habit clean tip, fresh solder on tip, if the soldering iron ends up back in its stand then clean tip and retin the tip.
If I apply fresh solder to most of my tips, it will melt and smoke. The ones that show signs of being oxidized have trouble melting fresh solder and none will stick to it. I'll try your advice on adding more solder to a joint to melt it. Would there be any issues with mixing lead solder with lead-free simply for the purpose of trying to get the join molten for desoldering? Also from what I'm reading here buying some supplemental flux to have on hand for such situations will be very useful. I see there's many different types of fluxes available. Which would you recommend for a decent all purpose flux?
I think that the black around the solder gives it away (looks like soot), your iron is too hot and you are applying heat to the area for far too long. This usually comes down to not enough or no flux, placing the iron to one side in order to see the solder ( a mistake made by many beginners) you should place the tip firmly on top of the joint and not keeping the soldering iron tip clean and not cleaning the joint before hand (there could easily be a coating put over the board after soldering in the factory). Also check that your solder is flux cored I have seen people try to solder with plumbers solder that does not contain flux cores.
I was placing my iron on the side of these joints for that very purpose, so I'll be sure to correct that. How can I place the iron firmly on top of joints with tall leads though? Also my solder does have a flux core but I'll be upgrading to some better stuff soon.
Practice practice practice is what you need, I'm willing to bet everyone in the forum hacked something as badly as that when they started off.
Grab some boards that are total scrap, watch a bunch of relevant youtube vids then remove and replace components until you are competent.
Indeed, this board I'm working on came from a broken amplifier that I was trying to repair, and I have a few old PCI cards that I'm practicing on. Oddly enough, desoldering some of these old PCI cards worked out really well for me while this amplifier was much harder. Perhaps they used lead solder on them.
Nobody spotted that this looks like a computer motherboard with multilayer thick copper ? And he's trying to replace the capacitors ? You can see what looks like the staggered pins of a pci connector top right of the picture.
So, This board is probably 2 ounce copper ground and power planes... So you will need a soldering iron with a high wattage to be able to heat the damn thing to melting point ! Cranking up temperature is not the correct way ! The poor soldering iron simply doesnt have the -oopf- to get that 'heatsink' up to temperature
The board I'm working on in the photos actually came from a broken mini amplifier and components I removed so far are two LEDs and a dual gang volume potentiomoter.