exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Desoldering using braid is *SO* labourious!

You really need a desoldering gun!

stephen_usher wrote: 26 Sep 2024 18:14 Desoldering using braid is *SO* labourious!

You really need a desoldering gun!

I have one, but using braid is my preferred method.

sporniket wrote: 26 Sep 2024 18:03 The real hassle for me is the up to another hour (cumulated time, actual or perceived) spend setting up the temporary workspace before and cleaning after...

Due to lack of space, I also have to set up a temporary workspace everytime I want to work on something and I agree with you, it's a real pain in the ...

stephen_usher wrote: 26 Sep 2024 18:14 Desoldering using braid is *SO* labourious!

You really need a desoldering gun!

When I will have a big space where I can set up a workshop with with all those tools at the ready, I may consider.

But for now, I have found a sure way to perform desoldering that does not requires supplemental space for storage, and with a quite cheap TCO.

Indeed, though if you can afford it the Hakko FR-301 is a good solution as it's sold in a carry case and doesn't have a base station. You take it out when you need it, use it, let it cool and then put it in the compact case and then store it... but you pay for that convenience.

It does mean going from taking an hour to get one chip out (sometimes with a lot of swearing) to a couple of minutes though, with less chance of overheating and damaging the PCB.I must admit though that with chips with old solder which has flowed up the legs I still need a hot air station to free them without PCB damage.

I took me 15~20 minutes for the usual Logic chips, and the 40 pins eprom took around 30 minutes. For the logic chips I also took a session to straighten all the pins.

And no swearing.

I have finished the extraction of components from the donor motherboard. Next time I will reinstall the power supply elements and check how it goes.


And I will be able to compile all my timelapses of the process and publish the video soon too.

The second timelapse, focused on extracting the components :



Copy of the description :

🎯 This year, I finished to convert the motherboard of the Thomson MO5 into Kicad. Now, I want to verify this work by actually build it.

➡️ The most tedious part. I experimented a lot of technique to desolder...

❌❌ Using ChipQuick SMD remover alloy... As the name says, it is for SMD only. On THT components, it just drip through the holes without helping much 💀💀💀

🤔 Using an electrically heated, manual solder pump... It works better than a manual solder pump in one hand, and a soldering iron in the other. Aspiration is better, but still weak. Then I had to finish, without ease, using a hollow needle. Some pads and traces were lifted, some pins were bent, one even brokes. Also, I hade to quickly change nozzles of the pump, and it finally ended up clogged anyway and I would need another heating element. So not as cheap as it seems at first, and not efficient, I DO NOT RECOMMEND ! 👎👎👎👎👎👎

✅✅✅ Using a wide (3/3.5 mm) solder braid AND A BIG IRON TIP was the winner tool, with a little bit of flux to make it flow better ! HIGHLY RECOMMAND ! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

💡 The video that made me realize that I needed a BIG TIP for my soldering iron in order to use solder braid successfully : 🔗

💡 The 900M-T-5C tip I bought (NOT SPONSORIZED) : 🔗 https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005005996377797.html

💡 The 3.5 mm width solder braid I bought (NOT SPONSORIZED) : 🔗 https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005007119153919.html

So, it works. At least the digital part of the motherboard, I had to bypass the power supply section to use a standard 5V/20W power adapter.





When installing all the chips, I had some that had a broken leg, so when it did not work at first, I tested continuity on those suspects, and one of them could not make contact with the socket. I forced the contact using a turned pin I had laying around for testing, I will do a proper fix later.

The end of your project seems not so far.