[rescue] The Soul of that old Machine

[Lionel Peterson]

I bought a craptastic desoldering tool off Amazon [0], sort of a
semi-automatic version of the classic spring-loaded desoldering tool, but I
had to stop using it - it would suck up a bunch of solder (yay!) then it would
vomit out the nozzle a small amount of the removed solder back on the board
(boo!).



(I attached a photo, but I think only Dave will see it, cc:'d him directly. I
wrote a review of the tool and included the picture on Amazon.)

I soon put masking tape around the board to protect it from the solder spew,
but out of desperation I tried the plastic suction tool and got most of the
solder off. I'm going to try and clean it up with solder wick, or I may break
down and get a real desoldering gun.

Ken

[0] here is the craptastic tool I do NOT recommend:

SHANSHAN Electric Vacuum Solder Sucker Tin Automatic Hand Welding Portable
Handheld 30W Removal Iron Tool Professional Desolde Pump Repair

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08MDHWV8G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_XK1FFDB0FS
0CSNVHYT05

> On Nov 24, 2021, at 10:01, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
>
> There's a new(ish) manual desoldering pump on the market called "Engineer
SS-02" that's available via Amazon.  For decades I've hated spring-action
desoldering pumps mainly because it's very easy to destroy boards with them,
but this model fixes everything I've disliked about them.  For a quick job
when I don't want to wait for the powered desoldering system to come up to
temperature, this little hand pump does the trick.