This Hobby Is Actually Useful!

[Jon Elson]

On 08/01/2015 09:40 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 08/01/2015 07:05 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
>
>> When repairing CPU motherboards with bad caps, this is a 
>> really big
>> problem.  I dilute the lead-free solder with leaded 
>> solder, this
>> helps lower the melting point to where two soldering 
>> irons (one on
>> each side of the board) can be used to clear out the 
>> plated-through
>> holes.  Those are multilayer boards, and way worse.
>
> Ever tried using a fusible alloy such as Chip-Quick?  That 
> can make things very easy to remove without overheating 
> the PCB. (I use a plain old PAR38 120W spotlight/reflector 
> to heat things up.
>
Diluting the tin solder with SnPb works quite well, I have 
used this trick many times to fix boards with large ground 
planes.
I don't do these sorts of repairs often, so I would lose 
special stuff like Chip-Quick and never be able to find it.

Last batch, my boss volunteered me to re-cap a dozen Dell 
PCs they were going to trash at work, WITHOUT consulting 
with me first!

Jon