Desoldering (Again)

Top of the line units are a waste of money until you have a mastery of the basics. Then they are a joy to use. A soldering iron that is not good enough will be extremely frustrating, and not worthwhile. A skilled and experienced tech should be able to desolder using a hot rock, a non-eletric soldering iron that is heated in a HOT fire, or a 1950s soldering pistol. But LEARNING with those handicaps is a bad idea. By analogy, automatic transmission, automatic choke, power steering, automatic spark advance, kettering style starter motor, etc. may not be necessary for the true expert, but they are important to reduce the number of variables WHILE learning. AFTER a basic mastery of technique, THEN one can begin adding in the impediments and challenges. Do NOT get started on the whole basic idiocy of "paying one's dues" ("If it was good enough for . . . ") and/or "if you learn with the challenges, then you will be better later". An incredibly cheap Weller TCPN from a swapmeet (look for big piles of the sickly green ones), is a good LEARNING tool. Use it until you can feel the difference, THEN replace it with a better one. Master beginning soldering BEFORE attempting desoldering. My soldering was HORRIBLE until I bought BARE XT motherboards, disk controllers and video boards, and soldered turn-pin sockets everywhere on them. Later, I learned that it was considered "stupid" to socket a resistor pack or dipswitches. (FLAW in my theory: My soldering is no longer UGLY, but it's still not very good.) Don't START with surface mount, nor even ICs! Do I even need to SAY, "desolder 14 pin chips before attempting a 40 pin"? Take a junk board, such as one from Chuck's laser printer, not one of Tony's, and start desoldering resistors. When you have stripped the board completely, solder them all back into place, and do it again. NOW, take a working but NOT RARE board, such as a printer port, strip it completely, reassemble it, and GET IT WORKING. You will learn a lot about bad solder joints, solder bridges, and lifted traces, and just how much force is right for wiggling pins to break them loose when almost all of the solder is off. Practice straightening bent pins and soldering broken ones back on. If you get Chuck's help, you can probably also learn to solder/desolder Tubas! Not relevant, but lots of fun. My sister wants me to find an almost irreparable French Horn to remove the valve housing and make a "hunting horn" - I'm not sure WHY, she has the LAST Lawson, that he came out of retirement to make for her. Try out LOTS of different solder suckers. For a beginner, a big blue spring loaded "Pullit?" may be substantially easier to get started with, even though once one has skill, a gentle pump is more controllable and easier to use FOR AN EXPERT. Play with solder wick. Many/most? experts may have no use for it, but it is GREAT for helping a beginner get the feel of removing solder. Use round wooden toothpicks, solder wick, and whatever else might work for YOU, and clean those holes COMPLETELY. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com