Intervalometer for Canon and Nikon cameras

Step 5 Ouch, I've got solder balls

When soldering fine pitch parts, it's inevitable to get what's called solder balls.  These are bits of solder that bridge between pins of the part, and refuse to go away.  I've got a simple solution to the problem.

Note on the first image, a solder bridge between the three left-most pins on the bottom of the part.  I've tried solder braid, xacto knifes, etc, to remove this type of problem, but haven't had much luck.  Here's how I do it now.

Lay the soldering iron across the pins as shown in the second picture.  Once the solders melted, tap the edge of the board on your workbench rather firmly.  The first tap is shown in picture three - the solder ball is gone from the 3rd pin, but is still bridging the 1st and second.  So, heat the pins up again, tap again, and the result is shown in picture four.

Note in picture 4, the solder has mostly moved from the pins and is spread across the solder mask on the front of the board.  I cleaned this up by first removing the tail of solder, and then heating the pins again (with a clean tip) to get the results in picture 5 - a perfect solder job.