While I have no argument with heat guns, I have no trouble at all with a temperature controlled soldering iron when used properly with the correct solder and flux.
The "trick" is to forget everything you ever knew about soldering leaded parts! The best techniques for SMDs are often those that would have any true O.T. used to working up tube sockets screaming at you for being a soldering "idiot", but they are the correct and simple way to properly solder and de-solder SMDs, even down to 0.5 mm pitch components, without special "holders", heat guns, or other exotic tools. A while back someone here provided this link to an outstanding YouTube video on subject. It's only 8 minutes, but if you haven't worked (or worked comfortably) with SMDs before, don't want to invest a lot in exotic tooling and want to have fun doing a good job with the smallest components, I can't recommend it highly enough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NN7UGWYmBY For desoldering parts with a great many terminals, the video speaks of a product called ChipQuik. It's great. It's a special solder that remains molten for a very long time. It's easy to add it to all sides of even a large quad package with many pins. All the pins will be released at once by simply heating them in sequence so the part can be taken of cleanly and easily without "cooking" the part or the board. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
