On Apr 7, 10:16*am, Ignoramus21203 ignoramus21...@NOSPAM.
21203.invalid wrote:
I worked today to fix my BIL's plasma TV. I had to replace a couple of
bad capacitors in the power supply. Working with a regular soldering
iron was rather unpleasant and inconvenient. So, I want to ask, would
anyone recommend a decent soldering/desoldering setup.

i

Its possibly not your soldering iron, those things are just *******s
to work on. And its because they now use (mandated) lead free solder
which is a real bitch. Its not real solder. Military, medical,
aviation are exempt, its just too flaky...
What you do is:- flood the connection with regular solder, you then
got a chance to get it out. But for caps I wouldn't - the boards are
(invariably) double sided which are awkward at the best of times. For
things like power supply caps, crunch them off the board and discard -
then pull each remaining pigtail out with a pair of long nose pliers,
after doing step 1 of resoldering with "Real" solder to try and get a
better flow.

And - a decent HAKKO clone can be had for 40 dollars here, does the
job well, lots of tips available. I have even used a chefs propane
blowtorch on occasion - works well with a bit of practice.....got lots
of specialised and just plain brutal soldering irons, collected them
over a lifetime of radio work. But, still looking for a kerosene
blowtorch type that rests horizontal and heats up about half a pound
of copper bit - great for soldering downpipes and guttering.

Of course, if you REALLY want to, you can spend thousands of dollars
on specialised equipment designed to do this sort of job you
mention........but I dont think thats the way its done here! G

Am surprised you got it working that easy - they mostly take out a few
controller IC's at the same time. BTW - were the faulty caps near
anything that was getting hot?....

Andrew VK3BFA.