Hello, I am currently having an enormous amount of trouble trying to desolder a USB port from a circuit board. The picture of the USB port on the circuit board: You can see that I have tried working on it with applying more solder to the leads, using the solder sucker, and trying to wiggle it out. This, of course, is of no avail. There are components very close to the USB port so I can not just take a Dremel and cut the housing off. Does anyone know of another method to take the USB port off with no damage to the other components and board without utilizing an oven or hotplate?
Find a plate of metal about the size of all the pieces you want to desolder. I think on here it might be under search for IC Desolderer or something like that, look around. Basically, the concept there is to apply heat to all of the points at once, then you just yank the part out before it's damaged. Obviously, damage to the port isn't an issue for you, though heat can and will be conducted through the leads to other components. So stick your plate on all the solder traces, hold soldering iron to the plate, wait until the solder on all leads is liquid and yank away. Hope that helps.
You could try using desoldering braid. I've never used it myself but what it does is draw the solder away from the joint. It works better than a solder sucker (usually). _C
move the iron quickly from the left support to the right one, and back agein untill the solder is liquid on both. then pivot the port back, bending the 4 pins. then you can start at one side, heat up the pin and pry it out with a screw driver, then go on to the next one. hope this helps
I have gotten a small number of caps out by using theshadow's method (melt solder, pull that end out a little, melt other side, pull that end out a little, repeat). The fact that there is more than two pins makes that a wee bit difficult, though. One thing you can try is to carefully clip the PCB away from around the port (I assume that you don't care about the board); start by cutting/breaking a large chunk off that contains the USB port. Then break off more and more pieces untill you only have a little around each individual pin (and then you just have to melt and remove from each individual pin); note that I have had some success with that method, but it usually ends in the accidental breaking of the desired part. If I want the part in good condition, I grip the desired object on one side with pair of pliers (and maybe some gloves) and use a pen torch to heat up the area, melting all the solder at the same time. Note that this can melt plastic pretty quick... Anyways, have fun.
i use the blowtorch method, that works for me, but if you want the board in a usable condidtion i wouldnt reccomend it.
I use a heat gun for things like that, just make a little metal shield to isolate that joints that you want heated.
If you have some heavy gauge sheet metal, you can make a custom soldering iron tip. so it only touches the joints you want. might want non galvinized stuff though. toxic fumes= no fun.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I tried to utilize the heating element on the stove with a copper clad circuit board to heat up the solder enough to yank out the USB port but that did not work. I have decided to take away as much solder as possible and try to break the USB port from the board by twisting it in all directions. So far, it is going slow since I do not wish to overstress the board, but it seems to be working. I will replace the USB port with a male rt. header and test if the board is still functional after this. If not, you will hear me cry bloody murder.
