Are you taking yours apart?

 

i last time i really soldered was in high school (1999) and wasnt that good. i was able to do the cluster in my 04 with no issues. i guess some people should really touch some tools.

 

Soldering is easy at the same time, at times I think I have had problems doing it. I am more interested in learning how to desolder properly so I may steal and reuse parts from junked equipment. I think I had the tools at one time, but I had a personal meltdown sold off what was left an overall $40K investment into R/C's for next to nothing. Do I ever regret that. All my fine working tools that took forever to research and collect. Even the guy who bought it was like - are you sure? (long story)

No, I am not taking mine apart. It is perfectly fine the way it is. I did decide the other day to take out my Onstar and XM Radio. I was happy to let go of my strictly factory thinking and just clear up space of unused components but... GM... taking them out gives me computer problems. The Body Module does not like to see them missing. Frustrating. Once more I wish I would said to the GM Technician and he had him reprogram my computer so that I lost Onstar but gained the Compass Feature and American Style Headlight Functions. I will forever kick myself for that.

I looked into some programming tools, unsure if they would even be enough to do the job, $1500 starting prices. Nope. Not doing that either.

 

The best way to desolder is to buy a desoldering iron which consists of a soldering iron with a rubber bulb plumbed to the tip so that when you squeeze the bulb, hold it, apply the hot tip to the solder joint, release the bulb and suck the solder right out of the joint. The kit includes several tips sizes so that it can be used on small and large junctions. It is ok to use braided copper wire that wicks the solder away, but it is used up. The bulb method allows you to blow the solder out of the tube after it is sucked in so that it does not plug the iron up. You can also blow out the joint if the sucker won't get it all, but of course that will cause the temperature to drop and re-solidify the solder so it might take a few tries to get all of the solder out of a large connection joint.

I have also seen people use a separate sucker tube which is essentially a pump that is spring loaded. You use an ordinary soldering iron to heat the joint and then apply the plastic sucker tip to the joint and press the button which releases the spring and sucks the solder out - if it has not solidified again in the process. So I guess the user has to learn where to place the sucker tip so that it will remove the solder with the tip in place to keep the solder melted in order to make it work, and it does work.

These are very inexpensive methods and do not require a lot of experience to use them. But for removing good parts from a board, I prefer to use a soldering iron (or gun) of about 40 watts. While holding the unit to be removed with my fingers and pressing against the board, I heat the pins individually until they melt and pull each out. If they are multi-pinned so that they have to come out all at one time, I merely continue to rotate between them heating each pin till they stay hot enough to keep the solder melted. Then all of the pins will come loose. If you are careful so that the device doesn't overheat, you can save most wave-solderable electronics that way.

If you know that the electronic item that you wish to remove is sensitive to heat, holding it by hand might not be good enough to protect it from overheating. The use of desoldering wick or a sucker tool and appropriate temperature control for heating the solder is required. I have not run across many devices of that kind, however. Be careful if using butane torch or soldering iron set to very high temperatures because they are too hot for this kind of work. In many cases they will destroy the device or ruin the board before you can even tell that the solder is melted. Then again, many people use them successfully because they learn how to use them properly.