**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Sat Apr 21 03:00:05 2018 Apr 21 03:14:53 Shapeshifter: sorry, I don't. I use separate 15bucks desolder pump Apr 21 03:15:08 and wick Apr 21 03:17:09 usually it simplifies stuff a great deal when you cut the component to remove into pieces, so you can pull one pin at a tme with a pair of tweezers or pliers while heating the solder of that one pin Apr 21 03:18:10 another alternative is hot air and reflowing all pins concurrently, so you can pull the uncut component Apr 21 03:19:15 unsoldering even a 3pin mouse button switch drives me mad without cutting the switch into pieces beforehand Apr 21 03:20:56 alternatively when you want to salvage the component, you might want to cut the PCB into shards so you can remove one PCB shard at a time from one pin Apr 21 03:22:25 for large heavy components you can trun the PCB component side down so components can fall out, the apply a torch to solder side of PCB to reflow large areas very quickly Apr 21 14:33:25 DocScrutinizer05: I managed to desolder all 64 switches using the solder sucker... What an ordeal. First I tried to remove the solder from all switches (which are also held in place by a base plate) to remove the base plate, including switches from the PCB but there was no chance in hell that would have worked, because the slightest drop of solder holding a pin in place was enough to make this fail. I Apr 21 14:33:31 got really mad and gave up, re-soldered all the switches and wanted to call it a day. I cleaned the PCB using KONTAKT and reassembled the keyboard but then discovered that since I had used so much solder trying to re-solder and re-suck the solder that some of the cleaning fluid, including sticky flux had gone into some of the switches, which were now sticking in the down position.... So I had dinner, Apr 21 14:33:37 took a hot bath, calmed down and went at it one more time, this time de-soldering one switch at a time, pulling it from the base plate - repeat. Took me close to 2 hours but I got the hang of it in the end. It's not that hard. It just takes a lot of concentration applying heat just long enough and really sticking that sucker down firmly on the pin... Still a huge pain. A de-soldering tool would be Apr 21 14:33:43 soooo much simpler. But those things are expensive! Apr 21 15:19:52 DocScrutinizer05: by the way, I once used a 5 buck solder pump and it was abysmal. Now this one I used cost more like 25 but it's /okay/. Engineer SS-02 **** ENDING LOGGING AT Sun Apr 22 03:00:04 2018