From: Eric Woudenberg, Minidisc.org Editor <minidisc_at_zoot.minidisc.org>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 17:51:07 -0400

Hi,

>"The one item I wished for during this procedure was a high quality soldering-
>iron with a temperature controlled tip. I started out using a 30-watt Radio Sh
>ack soldering pencil, but it simply cannot supply heat fast enough to desolder
> the circuit board from its mounting tabs without overheating everything in th
>e process."
>
>How exactly do you know when you're overheating everything else?

Well, in fact I don't know, but I have a sense of it. If by the time
the contact point is hot enough to melt solder, everything in the area
is also nearly hot enough to melt solder, you don't have a hot enough
tip. Contact point temperature is a function of time and temperature,
and in this case the thermal gradient is not steep enough, i.e. tip
temperature is not hot enough.

Perhaps I should just say that you should not leave the soldering iron
on the board for more than some 10's of seconds, at the most.
Preferably you touch the board and get off (staying only a few
seconds).

Rick
Received on 2003-04-11