I do recommend investing in a de-soldering tool with vacuum pump. Make replacing capacitors a fun exercise.

I use a Hakko FX-888D as my soldering station. It is programable in temperature and can hit the top temperature in 30s. I highly recommend it.

This is what I use for soldering / de-soldering:

The solder / hot air station was pretty cheap (about 120 euro) and it has lasted me for going on 6 years now. Finding solder tips for it is pretty hard since it uses an unusually thin tip, but the great advantage of that is that the soldering iron reaches 480 Celsius in about 60 seconds. The hot air pump is really handy too for removing / soldering surface mounted parts, but on my station it doesn't get as hot as I'd like it to. The yellow heated solder sucker I use is just a cheap Chinese one I payed 10 euro for. Does the job pretty well and it's easy to clean.

I also have one of these:

Also decent, was also really cheap (about 20 euro or so), tips are easy to find but it takes forever to heat up unlike the Lukey soldering station.

With these alone I've replaced simm slots, an ISA slot, removed an intel DX4 from an ISA comm device and replaced countless capacitors.

I have several Hakko 926/936 irons. Older models but work excellent. Heat very fast. Recover very fast.
Electrically they are the same and the handles/tips are interchangeable. Three handle sizes available. WIDE variety of tips available.
Found a cheap source of replacement parts a few years ago and they are still around. Last I looked they still had NIB 936's in both 220v and 120v.
https://www.google.com/search?q=hakko+926&biw … KHWlbDI8QsAQIRw
https://www.google.com/search?q=hakko+936&biw … KHVo2CUwQ7AkIYQ

A 40 watt iron would be just okay. A 50 to a 80 watt is better.
Ceramic heaters are better. Heat/recover faster and last longer.
Make sure to get spare tips.

Have one of these for desoldering. Works well. Mine is one revision older than the one shown.
http://www.circuitspecialists.com/Compact_Des … ing_System.html
There are also Blackjack models which are the same thing in an extruded aluminum case. The upgrade is all cosmetic.
- Use flux with them so you don't pull a trace off.

You should get an ESR meter, a capacitance meter and a DMM if you don't have them.
The test signal on the ESR meter should be 100kHz. A lot of them aren't and that is a problem.

Get an all metal ALL METAL Exacto Knife handle and stick a big fat needle in it. (So it's like a mini-Ice pick.)
You will need that to help clean stubborn holes. (So of course the needle has to fit through the holes.)

.... I'm thinkin' ....

I like to run two irons. One for on and one for off. (Uh, caps on-off.)
..... or sometimes one for big and one for little.

Get a couple sizes of solder braid (wick).
Get some flux.
Get some acid brushes to apply flux.

Get GOOD solder.
- Rosin Core.
- 60/40 or 63/37.
- 0.030-ish

A holding fixture is nice.

um
um
um
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Wick is too time consuming for more than a couple of components. As Phil said, get a vacuum desoldering iron.

You can either try to find a used Hakko 808 series, or get one of the Chinese clones (S-993 or S-997 is what they're usually called, with varying brand names). I bought one of the latter on recommendation from another VOGONS user, and I'm quite pleased with how well it works. Obviously it's going to just die horribly if you tried to use it in any kind of professional/commercial setting, but it seems just fine for occasional hobbyist repair/salvage jobs.

SquallStrife wrote:

Wick is too time consuming for more than a couple of components. As Phil said, get a vacuum desoldering iron.

You can either try to find a used Hakko 808 series, or get one of the Chinese clones (S-993 or S-997 is what they're usually called, with varying brand names). I bought one of the latter on recommendation from another VOGONS user, and I'm quite pleased with how well it works. Obviously it's going to just die horribly if you tried to use it in any kind of professional/commercial setting, but it seems just fine for occasional hobbyist repair/salvage jobs.

Vacuum units don't work in every situation (and sometimes they break).
If you don't have a back-up plan you are done.
.
Vacuum units are also over-kill for someone that is only going to do 3 or 4 boards a year.
.
And wick is very fast if you learn how to do it right.
.

I see it as time vs money. A proper de-soldering station is worth it, even if you're just doing a few boards.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I see it as time vs money. A proper de-soldering station is worth it, even if you're just doing a few boards.

I'm just not inclined to peer pressure someone into something they don't really need.
If they just WANT one, that's cool.

PCBONEZ wrote:

And wick is very fast if you learn how to do it right.

"Very fast" is an exaggeration. I say that from experience.

Especially for components with high pin counts. Give me a solder sucker over wick any day!

Especially when the Chinese ones are <$100 now. As Phil says, you just gotta decide how valuable your time is.

SquallStrife wrote:

"Very fast" is an exaggeration. I say that from experience. […]
Show full quote

PCBONEZ wrote:

And wick is very fast if you learn how to do it right.

"Very fast" is an exaggeration. I say that from experience.

Especially for components with high pin counts. Give me a solder sucker over wick any day!

Especially when the Chinese ones are <$100 now. As Phil says, you just gotta decide how valuable your time is.

I've been an Electronics Tech for 34 years.
I'm comfortable with both vacuum and wick.
I can pull a RAM slot faster with wick.

Wick is also better for solder clean-up after something is removed.
.

And I've been an electronics tech for 0 years and love my de-soldering station 😀

I've only used a few times. I think I re-capped one Tualatin board, socketed a few Dallas / RTC and also socketed the OPL2 on a Sound Blaster 1.5.

Solder Wick is very fast if you know what you are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcbezX8TrOU
I did have to look at several videos to find someone that knows what they are doing though.
The first 4 joints (equivalent to 2 caps) took this guy 40 seconds so he could pull 3 caps/minute.
.

For standard through-hole stuff, a manual pump is fine when desoldering a limited amount. A little residue won't stop you. I find it starts to become difficult with exceptionally fine pitch legs on components and lead free solder. Even with appropriately elevated temperatures, it feels as if the solder doesn't flow as easily or remain melted as long.

For soldering, I would rate my personal 888D Hakko unit highly, as I do Weller WES51 gear. The nicest I've used was an OKI (Metcal) station while reworking 0603 SMT components on premises monitoring boards. The only disadvantage is the requirement for different tips to set temperature.

PCBONEZ wrote:

The first 4 joints (equivalent to 2 caps) took this guy 40 seconds so he could pull 3 caps/minute.
.

This is "very fast" for you??

The very first thing I tried with my electric vacuum pump was removing a 34-way floppy header connector from an ISA I/O board.

I had the whole thing removed in less than 3 minutes, including waiting for it to heat up. Taking a whole minute to do just 6 joints? I wouldn't say that's fast.

This isn't to say you shouldn't have wick in your toolbox. As you say, it's great for post-op cleanup and removing excess solder. Definitely a must-have tool.

SquallStrife wrote:

This is "very fast" for you?? […]
Show full quote

PCBONEZ wrote:

The first 4 joints (equivalent to 2 caps) took this guy 40 seconds so he could pull 3 caps/minute.
.

This is "very fast" for you??

The very first thing I tried with my electric vacuum pump was removing a 34-way floppy header connector from an ISA I/O board.

I had the whole thing removed in less than 3 minutes, including waiting for it to heat up. Taking a whole minute to do just 6 joints? I wouldn't say that's fast.

This isn't to say you shouldn't have wick in your toolbox. As you say, it's great for post-op cleanup and removing excess solder. Definitely a must-have tool.

Well.
Give you and him each a board with 30 caps on it at some point you will have to stop, take it apart and clean out the glass tube - meanwhile he's still pulling caps.
He will be done before you are.

I'd love to see you pull an SMD cap out of the bottom of a CPU socket with a suck-gun without loosing the part down the tube.
It will certainly take you a while to fish that out. Particularly if it gets embedded in a blob of solder.

All I'm saying is that even if you own a suck-gun it's in your best interest to know how to do wick.
.
.

PCBONEZ wrote:

I'd love to see you pull an SMD cap out of the bottom of a CPU socket with a suck-gun without loosing the part down the tube.
It will certainly take you a while to fish that out.

Why would you use a vacuum gun for SMD parts, especially something small enough to go down the nozzle? Ya goose!! 😜

You're looking at this like it's one or the other, or that some people using a vacuum gun is a slight against you, or somehow detracts from what you do.

I clearly said you should have both in your toolkit. Horses for courses bro.

SquallStrife wrote:

You're looking at this like it's one or the other, or that some people using a vacuum gun is a slight against you, or somehow detracts from what you do.

No I am not. I will repeat what I said in the previous post.
~ All I'm saying is that even if you own a suck-gun it's in your best interest to know how to do wick. ~

And if you looked. BOTH a suck-gun and wick are in my list of suggested items. - So you are really reaching to even say that.
.

gdjacobs wrote:

For standard through-hole stuff, a manual pump is fine when desoldering a limited amount. A little residue won't stop you. I find it starts to become difficult with exceptionally fine pitch legs on components and lead free solder. Even with appropriately elevated temperatures, it feels as if the solder doesn't flow as easily or remain melted as long.

For soldering, I would rate my personal 888D Hakko unit highly, as I do Weller WES51 gear. The nicest I've used was an OKI (Metcal) station while reworking 0603 SMT components on premises monitoring boards. The only disadvantage is the requirement for different tips to set temperature.

Yes the ones with small diameter legs are harder. I think it's due to more solder in the holes because the legs take less room.

The Hakko 88xx (I dunno the models) are what mine evolved into. I imagine they are great.