I have a couple of old S370/slot1 motherboards and wI was looking at them longingly. The traces uderneath the laquer form a really cool lookiong design with all of the spidering and shapes they make, sort of an organic-mechanical thing. Im not sure where I want to put them, perhaps frame them and hang them over my desk. What I wanted to do was remove all of the components, ZIF socket, PCI slots, capacitors, ports, etc. Basically anything witha a solder point that extends past the board's back surface, (A few SMD's wont really bother me, just the really tall stuff) And I was trying to figure out how to remove it all without damaging the laquer and traces. I came up with a few ideas: One by one (NO!, too tme consuming) Bake it in the oven, (damage the oven, laquer) Iron it with a cloth over it (no steam) This seems the best choice as the heat will go right to the solder points and stick to the cloth without damaging the laquer much. Heatgun? Any suggestions?
Don't quote me on this, but I have heard using a non-stick griddle or warming tray on low heat. You are sure to ruin the griddle but it may work.
Hmmm - the only method I've tried with removing really large thinks from PCBs is a blowtorch - and that works quite well, though it burns the PCB. I'd try a very hot heatgun if you want to save your pcb.
Another idea - drill the holes with a Dremel or other small bit drill. This still leaves the problem of the solder spots on the underside, unless they'd be OK, you know, adding a bit of character. - H.
The way that electonic repairs are done on things like motherboards are using very small, very hot air guns. The nozzel is about 0.5cm across and they work like a non contact soldering iron. Not sure if your normal hot air gun is hot enough but got to be worth a try... Rod
