Baron wrote:
msg Inscribed thus:

James Sweet wrote:

msg wrote:

This Saturday I replaced seven popped Nichicon electrolytics
in my iMac G5; it took me nearly five hours of intense battling
with too-tight hole sizes and high-thermal conductivity planes
but the job got done and the fix worked. Has anyone worked
on this planar and can comment? What wattage and tip sizes
worked for you? I used a 65 watt iron and ground the tip into
various chisels and angled points, used excess solder and flux
and tried an amount of preheating but it really was a _bitch_
to do. I kinda doubt the board was made for repairing.

Michael


The heatsinking effect of planes can be a real issue. I use a 140W
Weller soldering gun for motherboard capacitor replacement, it's the
only thing I've found that puts down enough heat to remove the caps
without ripping up traces.
Indeed. I neglected to mention that I cranked up the wattage with
a variac to about 90W but that is nowhere near what you use

Michael

Hot air preheating works wonders. I use a hot air paint stripper gun to
preheat an area first before then desoldering the cap. Usually they
come out of the board quite cleanly but some manufacturers bend the
leads after insertion into the pcb, which can be a pain.



That's a great idea, I'll have to give it a try next time. Just have to
be careful not to overdo it and cause SMT parts to drop off the board.