Nice video Florin, I have a personal advise/trick when using solder wick. Solder wick acts as a heat sink, so (depending on the quality of the wick and your iron) some times you need to increase the temperature in order to make it work properly. So to make it more effective, instead of using the entire roll, I just cut a small piece and hold with my tweezers (smaller piece -> smaller heat sink-> better results)
Hi, so i need to use flux also with the wick? i can just use flux / heat and sweep ? or just the wick alone? Also, i dont have a fancy solder....its a basic plug in and go... 40 watt 220/240 volt. I use a kitchen sponge (damp), the green abrasive pad at the back... is that fine? or u reckon goldilocks (like in your video) used sometimes on pot and pan in kitchen. Also, is it fine to use a solder iron and tip that has not been used for years , maybe even 15 years... ? Do i need to clean the pcboard? I am trying to remove a bridge i did accidentally (before i knew of flux or even wick) , on a thing pcboard for a hard drive. Thank you
yep that happens and as you said it is required to really raise the temperature be gentle with dragging solder wick , or you might even bent the pins of the SMD IC if too much force is applied on tip and wick and not heating properly.
The solder bridges between pins removed using flux and a clean from solder iron tip just pulling the melted solder to one direction and if left some residues then clean it a second pass putting fresh flux.The desoldering wick is good to avoided since it causes damage to the pcb and reduces the life of the soldering tip also.
How can you forget the solder sucker sort of tool available to suck out the molten solder and that makes life more easier while dealing with solder bridges. It works for me, I don't know why you did not added that in the video.
Solder sucker is fairly useless for surface mounted components - the nozzle is too big and typically you don't have enough solder there to form an efficient seal while sucking it off, so it doesn't work very well. Smaller components could even be knocked around with the nozzle and/or sucked into the cylinder. Flux & wick are a lot more efficient for this work. Keep the solder sucker for what it was intended for - desoldering through hole components.
@VoltLog, you should have mentioned that one needs to be **extremely careful** when moving the solder wick. It is actually best to avoid having to slide it around at all. Place it on, suck off the solder, then remove it perpendicularly to the joint and put a fresh piece of the wick on the solder blob to continue the work. Do not tug or slide it around! The reason is not because it is "abrasive" (the wick is soft copper, that's unlikely to damage anything) but because it tends to "stick"/get soldered either to the PCB pads or to the IC pins and those could get even ripped off if one is not careful and trying to tug at the wick when the solder isn't completely liquid under it. If it doesn't want to move, **do not tug** at it! Reheat it with the iron first!
You're right, minimal force should be used, minimal movement as well. There is a balance between all of these things and one needs to practice until it gets good at it.
Good video, I just want to note that lead and lead-free solder should not be mixed as you lose durability. If you mix them you get a new alloy with new but unknown characteristics. Usually the strength of such a solder mix is reduced.
For solder Solder Bridge Olympics, you should try a 100-pin 0.5mm pitch MCU. Oh, those pins are tiny, and easy to bend, or burn/lift the pads. I often cut off a little piece of the wick, then holding it in tweezers to avoid heating up the whole roll.
EasyEDA works well for me. Otherwise KiCad is a good alternative. There is also Pulsonix and some others, but they're quite expensive and in my humble opinion only worth the money if you do it every day and for a living. Although if i remember correctly the free trial version of Pulsonix stays free with a limitation up to 100 pins/pads. So if you don't need more that could be an option as well.
Search for blunt dispensing syringe needles, they are commonly available from AliExpress and similar places in many diameters. The needle is usually steel and the thread is plastic. There are also fully plastic dispensing nozzles. E.g.: www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=100004793&SearchText=dispensing+needle And the plastic type: www.aliexpress.com/item/32663683554.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000023.11.1a3164492ILx22 You will generally want the largest diameters for manual dispensing (especially if you are dispensing something like solder paste!), otherwise it is extremely hard/impossible to push the content through the needle using the manual plunger. The smaller tips are meant for use with a machine dispenser using pressure air and what not.
@@FixDaily Welcome! I did look for that white tip, I think that's just a normal plastic tube because it is cheaper than metal (the needles are meant to be disposable - but you can reuse it if you clean it with some alcohol and don't let the flux dry inside). There is no reason for it to be ceramic.
Nice video Florin, I have a personal advise/trick when using solder wick.
Solder wick acts as a heat sink, so (depending on the quality of the wick and your iron) some times you need to increase the temperature in order to make it work properly. So to make it more effective, instead of using the entire roll, I just cut a small piece and hold with my tweezers (smaller piece -> smaller heat sink-> better results)
thanks for the tip, I agree, sometimes it's useful to use small pieces of wick.
Hi, so i need to use flux also with the wick? i can just use flux / heat and sweep ? or just the wick alone?
Also, i dont have a fancy solder....its a basic plug in and go... 40 watt 220/240 volt.
I use a kitchen sponge (damp), the green abrasive pad at the back... is that fine? or u reckon goldilocks (like in your video) used sometimes on pot and pan in kitchen.
Also, is it fine to use a solder iron and tip that has not been used for years , maybe even 15 years... ?
Do i need to clean the pcboard?
I am trying to remove a bridge i did accidentally (before i knew of flux or even wick) , on a thing pcboard for a hard drive.
Thank you
yep that happens and as you said it is required to really raise the temperature be gentle with dragging solder wick , or you might even bent the pins of the SMD IC if too much force is applied on tip and wick and not heating properly.
there is a fine balance in the technique and one really needs to practice to find this balance 😁
The solder bridges between pins removed using flux and a clean from solder iron tip just pulling the melted solder to one direction and if left some residues then clean it a second pass putting fresh flux.The desoldering wick is good to avoided since it causes damage to the pcb and reduces the life of the soldering tip also.
How can you forget the solder sucker sort of tool available to suck out the molten solder and that makes life more easier while dealing with solder bridges. It works for me, I don't know why you did not added that in the video.
Solder sucker is fairly useless for surface mounted components - the nozzle is too big and typically you don't have enough solder there to form an efficient seal while sucking it off, so it doesn't work very well. Smaller components could even be knocked around with the nozzle and/or sucked into the cylinder. Flux & wick are a lot more efficient for this work. Keep the solder sucker for what it was intended for - desoldering through hole components.
@@JanCiger yeah.. later i thought the same. Thanks.. have a good day ;)
@VoltLog, you should have mentioned that one needs to be **extremely careful** when moving the solder wick.
It is actually best to avoid having to slide it around at all. Place it on, suck off the solder, then remove it perpendicularly to the joint and put a fresh piece of the wick on the solder blob to continue the work. Do not tug or slide it around!
The reason is not because it is "abrasive" (the wick is soft copper, that's unlikely to damage anything) but because it tends to "stick"/get soldered either to the PCB pads or to the IC pins and those could get even ripped off if one is not careful and trying to tug at the wick when the solder isn't completely liquid under it. If it doesn't want to move, **do not tug** at it! Reheat it with the iron first!
You're right, minimal force should be used, minimal movement as well. There is a balance between all of these things and one needs to practice until it gets good at it.
Great video
Do you know the difference between Amtech NC-559-asm and the one you have in this video (NC-559-V2-TF)?
Good video, I just want to note that lead and lead-free solder should not be mixed as you lose durability. If you mix them you get a new alloy with new but unknown characteristics. Usually the strength of such a solder mix is reduced.
if has bridge chip will hot or not??
Thank you so much.
For solder Solder Bridge Olympics, you should try a 100-pin 0.5mm pitch MCU. Oh, those pins are tiny, and easy to bend, or burn/lift the pads.
I often cut off a little piece of the wick, then holding it in tweezers to avoid heating up the whole roll.
yes, I once assembled a board with such a chip and it was a pain to get right...
Helpful video 👍
Great information
Can you tell me name of PCB Designing software??
EasyEDA works well for me. Otherwise KiCad is a good alternative.
There is also Pulsonix and some others, but they're quite expensive and in my humble opinion only worth the money if you do it every day and for a living. Although if i remember correctly the free trial version of Pulsonix stays free with a limitation up to 100 pins/pads. So if you don't need more that could be an option as well.
I am using EagleCAD but would like to switch to Kicad at some point.
Can you provide me a link to that syringe tip? Is it ceramic?
Search for blunt dispensing syringe needles, they are commonly available from AliExpress and similar places in many diameters. The needle is usually steel and the thread is plastic. There are also fully plastic dispensing nozzles.
E.g.: www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=100004793&SearchText=dispensing+needle
And the plastic type: www.aliexpress.com/item/32663683554.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000023.11.1a3164492ILx22
You will generally want the largest diameters for manual dispensing (especially if you are dispensing something like solder paste!), otherwise it is extremely hard/impossible to push the content through the needle using the manual plunger. The smaller tips are meant for use with a machine dispenser using pressure air and what not.
@@JanCiger Thank you friend :)
@@FixDaily Welcome! I did look for that white tip, I think that's just a normal plastic tube because it is cheaper than metal (the needles are meant to be disposable - but you can reuse it if you clean it with some alcohol and don't let the flux dry inside). There is no reason for it to be ceramic.
they are plastic, here is a link voltlog.com/y/3srvu