I'm building a QMX and I'm not very experienced with this sort of thing.

After I soldered in the L401 inductor, it did not pass the continuity tests - so I decided to remove and re-wrap the toroid. Unfortunately I got a small piece of wire stuck in one of the holes on the board and I haven't been able to get it cleared. The last thing I tried was a sewing needle after heating the hole with a soldering iron. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks much & 73
John - W6JGV

开云体育

John,

开云体育

John,

First off do not drill the hole out as you may remove a connection from one copper layer to another on the board.? (Connections are internal.)? I don't know what soldering tools you have but I suspect you have no de-soldering equipment fancy to simple. If that is the case heat the wire to remove it from the hole.? (You may already have done this.)? Then but be careful, heat the hole on the back side with an iron while at the same time blowing very close to the hole on the parts side with your mouth.? (Put a lot of air pressure close to the hole and most likely it will clear the hole.)? Just be cautious and don't burn yourself.? (The iron should be able to steady itself from the depression in the hole to some extent.? The use of a solder sucker or solder wick would be preferable and the expensive way would be to use a de-soldering station.?

Lee, w0vt

Solder suckers work, de-solder braid works?

Tinning the leads of the new component, heating the PCB and stabbing the component leads one cat a time into the hole is also under-rated for coils etc?

if you must clear the hole with no other resources shave down a woodern cocktail stick and use that to break the surface tension in the hole

--
Dale Hardin
KS4NS
Elberta, AL

On Sat, Mar 23, 2024 at 08:33 PM, Ronald Taylor wrote:

John, a quicker solution that doesn’t risk damaging the board is to simply solder that particular lead to the top side of the board and let the plated-thru hole take the connection all the way through to the bottom. I recommend doing it this way before adding a lot more heat and potentially removing a pad.?

I'll second Ron's advice.

Or another method is to take the wire lead whle *briefly* applying heat to the
pad and gently pull the lead / wire through it.

It will will move into position, but often the joint will be poor.

So in one swift action, reheat and reflow the joint so that you don't damage
the PCB pad.

Works a charm in my experience.

If you need to gain a little practice, just practive a bit on some scrap PCB or
some of that 0.1 inch spaced stuff with copper tracks on it to determine how much
heat / time you need. (We call it Veroboard over here).
?
--
- 73 de Andy -

I have had this problem and what I? did to clear the hole was to lay a piece of solder wick on top of hole
Then with a fine tip iron push the hot tip into the hole?
Remove the wick and iron from hole at the same time and the hole should be clear

Thanks everyone for the all the good advice. Next step is to try the low melt solder and wick idea. Just placed and order...

The low melt solder works like magic.
But lately, I have just been using copper braid dipped in flux (also suggested in this forum).
For all but the most stubborn cases, it has worked just fine.

73, Mike KK7ER