Salvage surface mount components

I shall tell you how I rescue components from old circuit boards and store them for reuse. A board from an old (relatively new, that is) hard disk drive shall be shown for an example. The photo (taken using my scanner) shows one such board, after I removed the IDE connector.

Step 1 Desoldering

I have a movie showing my process. I am attacking a tantalum capacitor in the video, but the same process works for all other components too.

First bend a piece of thick copper (or other solderable metal) wire to fit around the component, and contact all its solder pads. Solder it in place. This is done to make thermal contact.

Then heat the wire at a central place with your soldering iron, and lift the component away with tweezers. Or push it away using a wooden toothpick. Only don't be too enthusiastic with the push or it will fly across the room and be lost forever in the crud that covers the (in my case anyway) floor.

These are best stored inside foam cutouts in a suitcase. Miniature, of course.

Comments

[neelandan]

This the method to use when you need to extract just one component from a circuit board. It complements the "Bulk extraction" methods of using hot air or a toaster oven, because extracted components are a bit fiddly to handle and store for later use.

[Jimmy Proton]

so how do you remove those IC's with 5000 pins?

[ratgod]

You can use a paint stripping heat-gun if you don't have access to a solder reflow workstation. It worked fine for me until I got mine a few months ago :)

[Jimmy Proton]

what about a toaster oven, i have removed components off a board with one (accidentally) but it is reliable? and what it a solder reflow workstation?

[ratgod]

sorry for very delayed response,
its a hot air gun for working with surface mount components.

[Terrean]

A correction needs to be made in your Instructable.
A 564 resistor is actually 560,000 ohms(560 Kohms) and NOT "five hundred and sixty thousand Kilohms".

[neelandan]

Edited to "560 Kilohms".

Thanks.

[robonut625]

I hate removing SMT parts!

Nice instructable though... I like your method. You might also try making one of these:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/how-to-make-a-surface-mount-soldering-iron/
http://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/297/1
http://www.usbmicro.com/odn/documents/ACC430664DD26DDE5986574AAA62775FDFF29EA1.html

You could also try using a clothes iron, like in this video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5064927163860056532

[SinAmos]

The Iron Is Genius!

[beehard44]

thanks for the clothes iron video! i just have a crappy soldering iron and i think the clothes iron trick will do nicely!

[nullsmack]

That clothes iron video is amazing. Thanks for sharing it.

[ReCreate]

Genius!

[SinAmos]

I love you. Good work.

[zack247]

ive found a partially successful way to remove SMD leds with no chance of melting them and a small chance of breaking/losing them is not with a soldering iron, but a small exacto knife.

just slce under the LED and it will slide off the board with the knife, but dont put too much pressure on the knife or else you will either hurt yourself, other components on the board, or the surface you are working on.

i used this technique and out of 14 blue leds from a cell phone board, i got 10.
the other 4 were lost among the floor that happens to match their color.

i lost a few while learning to solder them, but it was a learning experience for getting them off, and it does wirk with patience.

i usually store my smd components in a small plastic bag (like you get those perfboards in @ radioshack), but a better storage method will have to be in order since the bag has a few holes in it.

[devinmccloud]

The easiest way is to lock the board on a vice. Use a heat gun at high speed on the backside. Slowly remove the components with tweezer or needle nose pliers. Store components on an aluminum surface to cool fast. 99% of the components are good and reusable. Use google to look up datsheets for IC's. Then organize components by type and size. I can strip a motherboard in 3 minutes this way.

[zack247]

how to do leds??? wont it melt from the heat?

[TheMadScientist]

aha! so that is an old harddrive board!

[Derin]

"so that is an old fujitsu harddrive board!"

[zack247]

ahh... i have 2 dead fujitsus, they were very good quality if you ask  me...

[tanmanknex]

isn't the one you want always going to be the one you turn over last? why would you keep looking after that? jk ;D

[eric m]

nicde. marx generator

[eric m]

nice

[eric m]

IC's are such a waste. I wanted an led display and chip but you know the chip is impossible to figure out. just a waste. Ofcourse component makers don't want a used market undercutting them.

[altomic]

-big pot -cooking oil -stove -scooping net thing. put pot on stove add oil turn on stove when it it super hot throw in your pcb. stuff will melt off. IC are made to withstand hightemperatures. solder will melt before there is damage to the IC. scoop out IC with skimmer thing. party on.

[jackillac92]

Are there any noxious fumes from doing this? Will I still be able to get regular resistors from this or willt hey melt? Will anything bad melt? Do an instructable on this please!

[alex-sharetskiy]

plastics might melt

[geeklord]

I'm so proud of myself, I desoldered some 8 pin SOIC's with a $16 40 watt soldering iron! They didn't even melt(I lifted half the pad on a couple pins, though)! My iron has a nice tiny tip, and i keep it cleen. That helped a lot!

[alex-sharetskiy]

wow... i thought the brown capacitors were resistors, and the capacitors with stripes were diodes

[1up]

Awesome! Great method for desoldering them! I may use this sometime.

[WirelessMonk]

Excellent! I bought a few SMD LED laden gift cards for a $1.50. I figured at a dozen leds per card it was worth seeing if I could harvest them off the pcbs. Now I know how! Gracias!

[fingers]

I do thr same as a hobby and keep the bad stuff out of the landfills..It also makes good art stuff..

[Sawbones]

check this link for storage

http://www.engineeringlab.com/supkiten.html

or you can do it on the cheap like me and get those small plastic coin holders for dimes....

[The Real Elliot]

This is a great technique. Complements the hot-air stripper gun method perfectly. (Like, when you really just want one piece out of a given area.) Thanks.

[lightpacker]

Trust me on this get a cheap 15-25 dollar butane torch/soldering iron and if your desoldering parts i recommend getting good butane and just keep the torch constantly moving and the solder will easily melt Just get it anywhere but radioshack their torch's fuel tank is way too small i got a bernzomatic for 15 dollars totally worth it

[Ragman]

Ya'know, I just use a toaster oven, wipe 'em all of when the solders hot then sort it all out. I realy like you storage idea with the sticky tape.

[primoescobar]

This is awesome for those cheap bastards like me who can't afford a heat gun. This is great. Thank you.

[neelandan]

Yes, it would be easier to use a heat gun - if I had one. I pulled the IC before all the joints were fully melted and this was the result. It still works, it is a 74HC04, date code 8809. I should wire it up into something, just to show it off.

[bmlbytes]

I was about to say something about you breaking the IC. But if you notice, you hadn't goten to the circuit yet.

[dfowler7437]

I have an article and some pages devoted to heat gun scrounging. The following link leads to a How-To and FAQ section and a post about scrounging a rack mount router.

http://www.uchobby.com/index.php/scrounging/

[Masher1]

After you try it you will kick your self how easy it is to remove even the most complex SMC bit. The trick is to use a chisel to work the components pins loose of the solder. any SHARP small chisel will provide just enough force on the solder to BREAK the joint. Use the flat side to the PCB and angle as low as is convenient to force the chisel at the base of the solder joint. just gentle pressure is usually enough to crack the part loose. If you can hold the chisel totally flat you can even remove the real large chips without damage from a botched solder attempt.. if you go after a large chip or other ESD sensitive bit i would recommend using a grounding clip on the chisel. As i said you will love this method to build the really small tek.