Best Desoldering Method

[clumzy]

I was practicing soldering IC legs today on a computer motherboard and I think I've got the hang of it. I made a few mistakes and bridged a bunch of legs with solder and I'd like to practice desoldering. I have a desoldering braid but I'm not sure how to use it. I'm considering purchasing one of those desoldering bulbs to suck up the heated solder ... is that the best method? What do you guys do when you make a mistake?

Your help is appreciated.

[Toobs]

With desolder braid you just sit the braid on the blob of solder you want to remove and then press your soldering iron down on the braid and heat both the braid and the solder.
The solder will heat up and get sucked into the braid.

Most of the time when you stuff up with this sort of thing it will be because you have bridged a couple of points... for this sort of thing I usually just use the soldering iron to split the bridge.

[loy]

use some flux and desolder braid. also good to use a 30 watter to desolder

[N£TM£ÇH]

also be sure to clean your soldering iron tip, a high quality tip will be silver when clean.

[clumzy]

Ok so this discussion raises a couple of interesting points. For soldering to the board one should use a low power ~15W iron ... but to DEsolder with the braid it's okay to use a 30W iron?

Also, in regards to using flux .. do I apply the flux to the desolder braid and put the braid of the solder blob and iron on top?

[loy]

really depends on your skill

[clumzy]

Care to expand on that? I assume you're alluding to the fact that too much heat will burn out your chip.

[Toma]

Desoldering braids are often made of copper so they transfer heat exceptionally well and in some instances, it takes more than a few seconds to suck up all of the solder with it, so if you're not too careful you can burn traces, cook chips, etc.

I personally use a 25w iron (for soldering and desoldering) and I typically have to go through the area more than once with the braid; especially in tight spots like betwixt chip legs.

[TRABEL]

im using a very thick tip for desoldering with braid .
as it heat alot faster then thiner tips and do the job faster .
after i remove solder i use flax and then reheat with the solder , then the flux removeing any small bridgs you cant see.
if you ask me ... and you doing alot of this IC work , buy a hot aor station ... you'll manage to do that work in less time and without any problems ...
dont know if you asking this job for consoles , pc's or cellphones , but im using it for ps2 and cellphones , changing BA ,LA or BIOS in 2 min's ..removing any smd (caps , resistors , fuses ... etc )with np and back to place in secs ...
again ... if you going to do it alot. .. i say buy station like this ... its like a magic

[foreverjojo]

I just use the radio shack 15w iron and apply flux on the braid, it works great for me.

Its pretty diffcult to clean all the solder in one attmept, usually takes me 3-4 times to clean everything. In between each attempt, I wait for few sec to let it cool down a bit, I'm not sure if it will help to prevent overheat tho.