Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Heat and wiggle then Chemtronics Soder-wick for clean up. You can see it lurking under the Fluke.

I usually cut the components out at the bodies then heat and nip out each lead with tweezers but you can’t do that with RIFAs.

Solder suckers are nasty I find. They don’t get rid of enough solder not to pull the via out. Best to cut any bend off, heat, pull a bit then let it cool and work your way round slowly.

[Specmaster]

Heat and wiggle then Chemtronics Soder-wick for clean up. You can see it lurking under the Fluke.

I usually cut the components out at the bodies then heat and nip out each lead with tweezers but you can’t do that with RIFAs.

Solder suckers are nasty I find. They don’t get rid of enough solder not to pull the via out. Best to cut any bend off, heat, pull a bit then let it cool and work your way round slowly.

Good work with the eviction of those wankers, as regards to solder suckers, I agree if your speaking of the manual solder pumps, but the proper powered base station suckers are the bees knees provided you keep the sucked up solder from building up in the chamber and you keep the filter clean, mine will suck solder right out of the holes including the plated through holes with ease, a tad noisy but oh so much quicker and easier , especially when you can even use it to solder in the new item as well in most cases, stick the leg up into the tool, gently press the tool to one side and apply solder, automatically applies heat to the track and the part at the same time, easy peasy.

[tautech]

Solder suckers are nasty I find. They don’t get rid of enough solder not to pull the via out. Best to cut any bend off, heat, pull a bit then let it cool and work your way round slowly.

Well yeah but look at another way.....the PCB designer didn't allow large enough holes to account for rework !
When they do manual suckers work just fine. 

[0culus]

Hakko FR-301 was the best money I've spent in a long time. I don't use one enough to really justify a higher end model with a base station.

[Specmaster]

Solder suckers are nasty I find. They don’t get rid of enough solder not to pull the via out. Best to cut any bend off, heat, pull a bit then let it cool and work your way round slowly.

Well yeah but look at another way.....the PCB designer didn't allow large enough holes to account for rework !
When they do manual suckers work just fine.  [emoji14]

Hmm maybe, but that's when the extra and continuous suction power of the powered ones come into their own. Manual is a one shot wonder and unless its also a heated one. demands that you grow an extra hand as well. [emoji23]

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[mnementh]

I've found that there is a HUGE variance in quality and effectiveness with the handheld solder-suckers; the original full-size Solda-Pullt is still the yardstick. People complain that it's too big; and it can be unless you're willing to do the disassembly necessary to be able to heat the pad & move it into position quickly. But that size is what makes it effective; you need that volume and big springs to develop useful vacuum.

One of my first China-direct purchases, back in the late 90s, was a couple of knock-offs of the full-size Solda-pullt; I figured for what they cost (2/$9 with shipping from DHGate or DealExtreme), I could have one and a spare and still be money ahead. They were TOO GOOD a copy; aside from the branding ( Zhong-Di ZD-108 ), they were the same all-nylon construction, with 1/4-turn disassembly and even a spare Teflon tip. 20 years later, I still have both of 'em.

I have a good power desoldering station in my Aoyue 2702; it works well but is just a lot more hassle to maintain than the ZD-108.

mnem
*off to take a handful of pillz*

[Neomys Sapiens]

TEST GEAR ALERT!

eBay user zhoefler has a feck load of HP power sensors and other stuff for sale. Auction. Germany.

I know zhoefler, ordered occasionly some stuff there. Their shop is a bit unorganized but they have often nice things.
They have sold stuff at the HAM Radio, too, e.g. these deadly but cheap film capacitors.

He is a regular at Weinheim too and out to fleece me every time. And I know some of his sources, which are places I have worked with or at.
But once I witnessed some parts being rescued from him: when he appeared to collect those two placement automats, they had been miraculously stipped bare of servos, cameras, sensors etc. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

Heat and wiggle then Chemtronics Soder-wick for clean up. You can see it lurking under the Fluke.

I usually cut the components out at the bodies then heat and nip out each lead with tweezers but you can’t do that with RIFAs.

Solder suckers are nasty I find. They don’t get rid of enough solder not to pull the via out. Best to cut any bend off, heat, pull a bit then let it cool and work your way round slowly.

Good work with the eviction of those wankers, as regards to solder suckers, I agree if your speaking of the manual solder pumps, but the proper powered base station suckers are the bees knees provided you keep the sucked up solder from building up in the chamber and you keep the filter clean, mine will suck solder right out of the holes including the plated through holes with ease, a tad noisy but oh so much quicker and easier , especially when you can even use it to solder in the new item as well in most cases, stick the leg up into the tool, gently press the tool to one side and apply solder, automatically applies heat to the track and the part at the same time, easy peasy.

The Weller classics using the DS20/21 etc. are called 'Blaue Elise' over here. Guess why.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I have the full-size too, but I like the Soldapullt Successor more.

[bd139]

On solder suckers, I used to do rework with them years ago. As in high end Pace rework stations. I have watched people suck a pad off a £20k board with a nice ASIC on it more than once and it gets scrapped straight away. At the time that was more than their salary. The boards were very nice quality ones too. It takes two seconds to do a better job.

In the history of using soder wick thousands of times I have never destroyed a pad. And every time I can clean the board up with it so it looks like a component had never been installed.

Mantra:

1. Remove the component from above the board leaving max 3mm of lead. That decreases the thermal mass meaning you don’t have to hang around.
2. Desolder only what remains. Usually takes sub one second.
3. Clean the hole out quickly and efficiently with wick (that’s where the metcal is good)
4. Clean the whole with isopropyl alcohol
5. Board = new

Keep thermal mass, time and mechanical strain down. Destroy the part not the board.

Edit: incidentally this is the opposite of what happened inside that tek 475 I got the other day. The guy was lifting one leg and then ramming it back in. Crush the tant with some pliers, desolder each leg. Clean holes.

[Specmaster]

I've found that there is a HUGE variance in quality and effectiveness with the handheld solder-suckers; the original full-size Solda-Pullt is still the yardstick. People complain that it's too big; and it can be unless you're willing to do the disassembly necessary to be able to heat the pad & move it into position quickly. But that size is what makes it effective; you need that volume and big springs to develop useful vacuum.

One of my first China-direct purchases, back in the late 90s, was a couple of knock-offs of the full-size Solda-pullt; I figured for what they cost (2/$9 with shipping from DHGate or DealExtreme), I could have one and a spare and still be money ahead. They were TOO GOOD a copy; aside from the branding ( Zhong-Di ZD-108 ), they were the same all-nylon construction, with 1/4-turn disassembly and even a spare Teflon tip. 20 years later, I still have both of 'em.

I have a good power desoldering station in my Aoyue 2702; it works well but is just a lot more hassle to maintain than the ZD-108.

mnem
*off to take a handful of pillz*

Yes, powered ones are far more difficult to clean and can be slow to heat up but there is nothing like them for big jobs and speed especially on large parts like multipole connectors for example. I have tried heat and wick with wiggle, manual suckers, even have a manual sucker which is heated directly and nothing compares to the powered sucker in my book. I've damaged traces and pads with wicks using heat and wriggle method with wriggling lifting or even tearing traces.

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[bitseeker]

 

Hahahaha that's awesome   

That it is! Spot on, med.

I have to add that somewhere in the OP. Added to the Glossary since it's a condition that could apply to both the equipment and its owner when it occurs.

[GregDunn]

I've done soldering for ~40 years, and learned from some excellent technicians.  Many of them used solder wick, but my experience has been that unless the board is very high quality with thick traces, it's possible to wreck one very quickly with wick.  Where I worked, most boards were MIL quality G10 stuff and it was easy - I did a fair amount myself.  On consumer stuff, not so much; it's hard to find good wick (and I've tried expensive stuff) small enough that you can heat it along with the solder.  The hotter the iron the more likely you'll lift the pad before the wick heats up.  I found that a manual solder sucker (yes, a Soldapullt) works pretty well if you have small pads and a hot iron (and can get the honking great thing in there), but you have to position it very carefully to get the vacuum seal right on the  solder while it's still molten or else you have to add more solder and try again.  Since switching to a desoldering station my results have been 2-3x as good, and I haven't lifted a pad in a long time.  All the heat goes right to the pad and lead, and there's no delay while you remove the iron and position the sucker.  There's nothing like it for a big ground area or through-hole ICs.

So it strongly depends what you're working on, the quality of the board and assembly, and the tool.  No doubt it can be done via any of the methods, but you should stick with the one which works best for you.

[Specmaster]

I've done soldering for ~40 years, and learned from some excellent technicians.  Many of them used solder wick, but my experience has been that unless the board is very high quality with thick traces, it's possible to wreck one very quickly with wick.  Where I worked, most boards were MIL quality G10 stuff and it was easy - I did a fair amount myself.  On consumer stuff, not so much; it's hard to find good wick (and I've tried expensive stuff) small enough that you can heat it along with the solder.  The hotter the iron the more likely you'll lift the pad before the wick heats up.  I found that a manual solder sucker (yes, a Soldapullt) works pretty well if you have small pads and a hot iron (and can get the honking great thing in there), but you have to position it very carefully to get the vacuum seal right on the  solder while it's still molten or else you have to add more solder and try again.  Since switching to a desoldering station my results have been 2-3x as good, and I haven't lifted a pad in a long time.  All the heat goes right to the pad and lead, and there's no delay while you remove the iron and position the sucker.  There's nothing like it for a big ground area or through-hole ICs.

So it strongly depends what you're working on, the quality of the board and assembly, and the tool.  No doubt it can be done via any of the methods, but you should stick with the one which works best for you.

Totally agree, the worst part of a desoldering station is finding that the the nozzle size incorrect and you have to wait for it to cool down enough to change it over. with the right sized nozzle it should be near enough impossible to lift or damage a pad etc as the pin goes inside the nozzle and the the nozzle is pressed down onto the pad / solder and then both get heated together and quick squeeze of the pump trigger sucks the solder right away, release the trigger an lift the nozzle off, pad should still be firmly attached because the nozzle was pressing it against the board. The part will then normally just drop off the board.

[bd139]

The outcome depends on the annular ring size, track sizes and the via quality. If you look at the high density boards none of those are in your favour.

If you look at the boards I do they have carefully picked characteristics in this space so rework is possible. Large pads, good component spacing, tracks that aren’t hair sized, careful ground plane placement etc

The exact opposite is the stuff from QRP Labs which does a shitty job and you can find all sorts of “I buggered up the board” posts on their groups.

[tautech]

The outcome depends on the annular ring size, track sizes and the via quality. If you look at the high density boards none of those are in your favour.

Quite so.
Still, there are many that use default annular rings and drill sizes and are too inexperienced with rework to know how big a difference just these simple things can make.

I've given up critiquing PCB's here as advice on this seems to fall on deaf ears.
I only hope these novices have to rework their own designs a few times to get them to work and then learn from the school of hard knocks !

[bd139]

The outcome depends on the annular ring size, track sizes and the via quality. If you look at the high density boards none of those are in your favour.

Quite so.
Still, there are many that use default annular rings and drill sizes and are too inexperienced with rework to know how big a difference just these simple things can make.

I've given up critiquing PCB's here as advice on this seems to fall on deaf ears.
I only hope these novices have to rework their own designs a few times to get them to work and then learn from the school of hard knocks !

Indeed. I think most professional "design engineers" tend to just chuck the board over the fence and not give a shit. They should spend some time fixing shit. And make them use a firestick and a Tandy solder sucker just to hurt them

Quick case study. QRP Labs QSX. Check out the pissy little pads for the encoder pins, the tiny annular rings everywhere and the worst of all, the clear bad soldering on the header pins on the rear of the board due to the drill size vs pin size - the solder just sits on the top and there's hardly any annular ring. Ick! The pads are so small it's no possible to hand solder them properly. Bugger one and the whole board, including all the prepopulated SMD parts go in the bin.



I've got this one unpopulated but look at the huge difference. This was designed to be fixed:



There is no excuse for the former not to be like the latter.

Edit: another really good board:

[bd139]

Meant to post this as well the other day. This is the shit I had to deal with inside that Tek 475...

That pad is gone! You can see where he chipped a resistor, destroyed a pad, burned the top off a cap and slipped with the iron



So we have to move the part. This has been cleaned since for ref. Not all fluxy now.

[tautech]

I've got this one unpopulated but look at the huge difference. This was designed to be fixed:

And yet look at the pads for the resistors............that could have been done better !
It's not like they were room constrained. 

[BU508A]

He is a regular at Weinheim too and out to fleece me every time. And I know some of his sources, which are places I have worked with or at.
But once I witnessed some parts being rescued from him: when he appeared to collect those two placement automats, they had been miraculously stipped bare of servos, cameras, sensors etc. 

This one?   

https://ukw-tagung.org/

Hope I can manage to visit it this year.
Btw, Rainer Förtig is located near Darmstadt, is he a part of the show, too?

[bd139]

And yet look at the pads for the resistors............that could have been done better !
It's not like they were room constrained. 

I don't disagree with you there.

[BU508A]

I've got this one unpopulated but look at the huge difference. This was designed to be fixed:

And yet look at the pads for the resistors............that could have been done better !
It's not like they were room constrained. 

Maybe this is because due some design policy? Probably a stupid policy in this case ...

[bd139]

I think they probably found something that felt like it worked and held onto it. Not unusual.

[BU508A]

Good stuff! 

[Cerebus]

Easy: all you have to do is cut out a small piece of FR4, and cut a cross in it with a dremel (dentists burrs recommended, but any ball will do) or hacksaw.

Edit: I see bd139 beat me to it.

I find an Engineer's tungsten carbide scribe a good thing for making fine 'cuts' in copper clad. Deburr with a bit of steel wool after scribing. Also good for scoring and snapping FR4.