In 2008 I went to a school for the military doing circuit card repair. Mainly trace repair and eyelet repair type of stuff. When I got shipped off to Korea for this same job. There wasn't alot of board fixing. I went in the military working on f-16's on the electrical side of things. When I got out I started in the oil and gas industry working on cnc equipment.

Was the CnC equipment work in the gas industry some how associated with the PCB repair? Did your military experience help you get your jobs? Or were you starting from scratch as a completely new skill set? Im always interested in how vets are treated or valued by the business world.

 

Well, there's still the question of how you can guarantee it's working to specifications if you don't have test procedures and stuff. But I guess if it makes the machine work, that's enough proof. I'd look for failed power components and cracked solder joints at big components and things that are under mechanical stress or vibration.

 

Was the CnC equipment work in the gas industry some how associated with the PCB repair? Did your military experience help you get your jobs? Or were you starting from scratch as a completely new skill set? Im always interested in how vets are treated or valued by the business world.

My electronic work on the f16 is what helped me get the job. The oil and gas industry doesn't have time for fixing boards. But I built on my knowledge of my electronic skills to help me troubleshoot cnc equipment

 

I see obvios that answeris hidden irn the word "solder station". Long ago when humankind learned to connect the wires they used the gas torch welding the wires let the copper ball left in the end. I had such TV in my young age. Then humans find that they may use the mixture of lead and tin - for warming was used most simple soldering hummer with COPPER center and much of the colofonia to get the adhesion. This isnt working without colofonia, no way. And then someone invented the soldering station. When I worked some time in the Sweden I fell in shock - in whole land there wasnt possible (principially) to buy the colophonia. Somehow I managed that problem substituting it by the aspirin tablet, however even that there was not a pure salicitacetil acid but some 10% of acid in mixture with 90% microcellulosae, thus it worked very poorly. Next travel I took with me the piece of colofonia to make them a gift - they ticked, sniffed, licked and wasnt able to realize what it is and for what. So, technology is going far ahead, and the main difference between the ROHS and non-ROHS soldering wie is the temperature. Sorry, but the soldering station isnt made for anything like the large or massive copper soldering. For that You must to obtain the old type of solderer with pure copper workend, and apply the colophonia. Or worst case, ortophosphoric acid, or better, zinc chloride (last two are incompatible with any electronics).

 

as already stated you need soldering iron with high thermal mass, something that will not drop in temperature when you contact the solder joint. you need something with a sizeable chunk of copper as a tip. conventional soldering stations are not meant to handle this. you want to hunt big game, you are going to need a bigger weapon, something that looks like this. it is called heavy duty soldering iron.

 

as already stated you need soldering iron with high thermal mass, something that will not drop in temperature when you contact the solder joint. you need something with a sizeable chunk of copper as a tip. conventional soldering stations are not meant to handle this. you want to hunt big game, you need a weapon, something that looks like this.
View attachment 279220

Sweet

 

This morning I was able to get two of the prongs to melt using the hot air station kept it at a difference moving it back and forth on the metal for a couple of minutes, then I switched to the soldering iron and got it to melt. I used some wicking to pick it up. I'll have to get a solder sucker for the rest of the pins. I'll just have to remove the ribbon cable to get to the rest of them

 

yup... using wider tip helps with heat transfer but the problem is that even wide tips for regular irons are too small small in volume to have needed thermal mass for jobs like this. covering joint with more solder can help too as solder conducts heat better than air. but even that is not enough, it creates big mess on the board (likely ruining it), it takes too long time, pool of solder obscures the view and the solder has poorer thermal conductivity than copper. for this you really need a big chunk of copper as a tip that can maintain temperature for log time. use only corner of the tip to work on a single joint, use entire edge to free more than one joint. it may also be worth to make own custom tip that can contact ALL joints of the heatsink at once (but nothing else that is on board). then removal becomes easy and much less risky (less likely to damage the board).

you really need to heat and desolder only the joints, not to heat up entire heatsink or board and all other components. and you do not want to heat board for several minutes only to free one joint.

it is really no different than using IC desoldering tip... simple 2-4 seconds contact and entire part comes off...

 

I'll have to get a solder sucker for the rest of the pins.

Your soldering station already has a vacuum desoldering tool:

They're a bit of a pain to clean, but it beats using solder wick.

 

I am guessing that you are trying to unsolder that large copper terminal piece. I would use a soldering IRON with at least 100 watts of heater. When it gets hot enough to melt solder, use a bit of solder to help the heat transfer to the part to be unsoldered. That will conduct heat to the part much better than air does. The joint will still take a few seconds to melt the solder.