SparkFun Forums

[emaayan]

hi.. i'm asking this is because one of the hardest things to do is to extract the soldered break away headers http://www.sparkfun.com/products/116 from a card, i mean i probably trashed my card from all the attempts slip in the tip and some how push out the pin,

while on the subject of pins ,the molex female pins they sell here, seem to be weak, however, i've purchased other molex pins but they don't fit the plastic connector housing (talking about the single ones).

[lyndon]

TO remove those things, apply a lot of solder to the joint, get it nice and hot and then use a solder pump ("solder sucker"). The excess solder lets the pump gets a good suction going and pulls all the solder out of the joint. After you've done that to all the pins, wiggle it gently and it should come loose.

[dkulinski]

Oh, I never thought about adding more solder to get that suction seal. Great advice, I'll try it at home to replace a non-backlit LCD display with a backlit display.

Dan

[emaayan]

tried that, it doesn't work, problem is it seems the completely covers the hole (the only i can melt the solder) so the pump cant' get to it.

[KeithB]

A de-soldering iron has a long tip with a slot so that you can heat all the pins at once.

My google foo isn't too good today, I could not find one to show you.

[lyndon]

Not sure I understand. The iron and pump should be on opposite sides of the pin with the pump opening as far over the pin as possible. Maybe it's just not supplying enough heat to melt the solder from the angle you are holding it?

Here's an example of what I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw4lZGk90i4

You can buy desoldering tools that combine the pump and a soldering iron, but the only one I ever used didn't work very well.

[emaayan]

wow that was fast, but i don't have such a sharp thin pencil..

IMAG0036.jpg

so it's harder for me to do it..

[Valen]

To desolder "solderwick" is also very usefull. It is copper wire braided into a ribbon. Heating up the solder with the solderwick on top of it makes the solder flow into the braided copper. It sucks the pin clean.

Robert showed it in a friday product post some time ago iirc.

[emaayan]

so THAT'S what's the wick is for... hmmmmm, will try it...

[langwadt]

cut it apart and take one pin at a time, not worth ruining a pcb to save a header