When you are changing parts on a printed circuit board, it is sometimes hard to remove all the solder. When you manage to get the part removed and the hole is filled with solder. Heat the solder with your iron and take a wooden toothpick to open up the hole.
I recently refurbished a DC barrel connector from one of my dad's laptops motherboard PCB's after I diagnosed it was causing a power-up failure. The solder joints were all crusty and unreliable. Solder-wick/braid served me well in removing all the old solder after aiding the wicking process by adding fresh solder. Adding fresh rosin cored solder makes it easier for the braid to wick old and oxidized solder through capillary action.
A word of warning. I bought some CP-1515 Goot solder wick from eBay for a pretty good price but the quality of the wicking process and the wick itself was no where near as good as the wick I bought from element14. I think they may be counterfeit. It does work but I found it hard to get the wick to "grab" the solder I wanted to remove. If you are a tight arse like me it's probably worth it.
The cheap solder suckers work OK, but the tips don't last long becuase you need to put the plastic tip in the molten solder in order to get decent suction. If you are going to go the solder sucker route, you need to spend a little money and get a good one with high vacuum and a metal tip.
Soldering Removal Trick
Posted - Dec 22 2012 : 09:12:56 AM
