When using an ‘soldering iron’ along with Solder Wick to remove excess solder, there is a good chance you will damage or lift PCB pads.
Ideally you want to place as little pressure on the wick and solder joint as possible.
On the other hand, if you use a ‘hot air wand’ instead of an iron, there is no chance of damaging a PCB pad.
Tools and supplies needed:
- Hot air Wand with a ~4mm nozzle
- Kapton or heat resistant aluminum tape
- 2 mm Solder Wick
- liquid flux
- ceramic tweezers (reverse)
- IPA to clean up your rework
Before using your wand, to avoid overheating components, add Kapton or heat resistant aluminum tape to surrounding parts .
Cut a 2 cm piece of Solder Wick and place it in the ceramic tweezers.
Add liquid flux to the Solder Wick and melt some solder (~1mm) at the very end of the wick.
Add a drop of liquid flux to the solder joint being reworked.
Set the hot air wand to ~320°C at an air setting of ~4.5.
Heat the end of the Solder Wick and the solder joint you are going to rework.
Most of the heat applied to the wick stays in the wick as the ceramic tweezers are a good heat insulator.
When the solder on the end of the wick melts, sweep the wick back and forth across the solder joint.
As solder melts, insert the wick into the solder joint and let the wick do its job.
Cut off spent wick as necessary.
Since there is no mechanical pressure placed on the heated PCB pad there is almost no chance of damaging it.
After rework clean the solder joint with IPA.
