Removing defective switch from PCB

With PTH you need to get lots of heat into the board - removing solder achi eves the opposite. Put the sucker & braid away and solder it, then you can heat one pin at a time and bend the board ever so slightly, and slowly walk it out. Yes, it's slow. No, you mustn't overheat anything.

NT

hieves the opposite. Put the sucker & braid away and solder it, then you ca n heat one pin at a time and bend the board ever so slightly, and slowly wa lk it out. Yes, it's slow. No, you mustn't overheat anything.

Not a good plan IMO - if it's just a top and bottom conductor board, maybe. But if it's a multi layer I wouldn't try it. That kind of manipulation c an cause a detachment of a middle layer conductor that would be tough to so lve without a schematic or an identical board to trace out.

But you're correct about heat. When working on multi layer boards that req uire multiple through the hole pin extraction, I preheat the board to 125C and let it soak 15 minutes. Add some liquid flux and solder removal techni ques are usually effective.

Thanks for the advice guys. I have a schematic available fortunately; I'll have to take a closer look at the board but since it's Behringer my guess is that a double-sided board at most heh heh ;-)

Yeah, double sided is not so bad, but it can be hard to deal with the triple sided ones. ;)

With the hot air rework stations from China at only $ 45 you may want to look into getting one. While they probably will not hold up under heavy usage, I have one and it works fine for hobby use. YOu get the hot air gun and a soldering iron that heats up very fast.

Here is one from ebay..

Any chance you can cut the pins with a pair of cutters, dremel grinding wheel or some other butchery? That's what I do most times. Divide and conquer.

George H.

Item number is not valid...

John :-#(#

Works for me.

Try searching for

There are many of them for just under $ 50.

I don't know what this plate may be, can you Dremmel+.5mm grinding disc, separate it from the switch and then desoldering?

Dremel Grinding Disc PC Boards Thousands of tiny bits of metal

Does anyone else see a recipe for disaster here?

I keep one of these - which, despite its size, is very good at fine cuts, almost to the 'nibbling' level. And no swarf. Sharp, tough, cuts mild steel very easily.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

Clear your cache. I get a No Listing for 122275067539.

John :-#)#

If you have a hardware store type hot air gun with closed-loop temperature control then you may be able to use that. I recently had to use one set to 340 deg C to get a connector off, and that was one pin at a time. I needed the hot air gun again in one hand, to get the solder to melting point to clean out the holes with one of those desoldering irons in the other hand (with the vacuum pump). Even filling up the holes with leaded solder only made it slightly easier, but I could still not get some holes to melt right through with any soldering iron (including a Metcal with a very large, very hot tip), even with the board on a hotplate.

I found it by doing a Bing search on the number directly from your post. (T-bird lets you do that)

almost to the 'nibbling' level. And no swarf. Sharp, tough, cuts mild stee l very easily.

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Rather than grind, I clip all the pins and extract one at a time. It depend s if you're trying to salvage the part or just want minimum damage to the b oard.

When removing caps from computer mother boards I sometimes have to use a ho t air tool in one hand and a Metcal iron in the other for the ground pins w ith no thermal relief on the internal pads. My hot air tool is one of those 862D units. I use only the air part which is also an excellent heat shrink tool.

Usually if you drop the item number into the search bar on eBay it pops up with the item listing. I am so used to doing that that I did not try any other method...so I tried google and indeed, up popped the hot air station.

Thanks for reminding me to dig deeper, and watch assumptions!

John ;-#)#

One possible way is to break the switch apart, so that you can remove each pin separately. The metal housing might need to be sawed or filed until the mounting pins are separated, then pluck each with tweezers while heating with soldering iron. Then, break the plastic parts and extract the contacts the same way. This may be the best way to avoid damaging the board.

Jon