How to unsolder driver from S2+ pill

Hello. I’ve got a S2+ and a 50W soldering station.
I wanted to unsolder the driver from the pill and run into problems:

  • if I try to apply heat directly to the joints it doesn’t work - I can melt the solder, but can’t heat up the whole pill and the driver won’t move
  • if I try to apply heat directly to the joints and remove the solder with a braid it doesn’t work - the braid either gets hot or can’t take any (barely melted) solder,.

I’m sure half of the readers of this post knows what I do wrong.
Suggestions?

Heat the pill from side with blow torch enough to keep it hot and then use your iron for solder joints. :slight_smile:
Just make sure you dont melt everything!
Cheers :beer:

I used De-soldering Pump Tool ( Solder Sucker), very useful tool for this kind of work.

Since solder is soft, I generally cut the driver out with a pick or utility knife. If the solder has drawn to the other side of the driver, you will need to desolder it. Flux can help make the solder flow when you heat it, but you need a powerful solder iron or heat gun to heat all the mass.

What soldering Tip are you using?

I also find cutting the solder out much easier than trying to remove the solder with an iron or de-solder pump tool (which I’ve never been able to successfully use). I’ve also tried desoldering braid but haven’t had any luck with that either.

I’ve used desoldering braid with flux applied to it. Thankfully not something I have to do very often, it’s not fun. A powerful (and adjustable) iron helps too.

I use something similar to https://m.banggood.com/Antistatic-Desoldering-Pump-Sucker-Solder-Irons-Vacuum-Tool-p-86035.html

This is why i bought a 80 Watt (could be 100 Watt, i forget.) soldering iron a couple of years ago.
Sometimes you just need a lot of heat fast and locally, like in this case of desoldering a driver form a brass pill.
Otherwise you have to heat up the whole pill with a butane torch, and risk parts of the driver will desolder too…

The trick is; apply more heat!
Like Jerommel said, use a bigger soldering iron. I use a 40W, always works for me.
When using a less powered iron, usually i use a plier, heat up the solder join, try to force one side up a little, do the same to the other side, after 2 or 3 times its out.

I recently had to unsolder my S2+’s driver to install an A17DD-L.
I used a chisel soldering tip and an desoldering pump.

You could get to the same result with a unsoldering wick as well.
Just make sure to use a medium (or large) sized tip as you want quite a bit of thermal capacity for messing with copper parts.

I am aware that brands are often mixed up with the general description, but I use what is commonly known as a “Stanley knife”. The driver comes off quite easy before you try to desolder it, because the solderering excersize often consists of a few blobs. It is harder after you tried to desolder it and part of the solder has crept into the gap between driver and pill.

I believe many has said the solution but I’ll give my insights too.

A minimum of 60W soldering iron is needed to solder on brass pills.
If you can’t get flat head chisel tips on your solder, use the fattest part of your needle tip to do your work.
Heat the pill up with a blue flame torch if possible with care. I wouldn’t recommend fire but sometimes it is needed to make things easier

Thank you all for the great suggestions. :slight_smile:
I managed to cut the driver out. Now on to programming. :slight_smile:

Are you going to put in a whole new driver like an LD-2 or LD-3 or are you re-using the existing one? When using a driver with more than 4*7135AMC’s you wil notice that you cannot use an ordinary retainer ring. Here is what I do in that case

Initially I want to use the stock driver with 6*7135, but with custom fw.
Then I intend to add another 2*7135.
Thanks for the suggestion.

heat up the pill to about 150°C is best solution to get the driver out easy
or you cut with a knife or use a Dremel to get the solder weakened or free

I have had to do this before what I do is grab the driver by the spring or large component on the driver with a pair of pliers and hold the driver/pill assembly a few inches off the table with the driver on the top and pill on the bottom. Then I heat the pill with a butane torch moving it around from all side to heat evenly until it heats up enough to melt the solder. At that point gravity will take over and the pill will drop down and you will be left holding just the driver with the pliers. This method heats from the pill side so you should not have any issue with the board overheating and loosing components off the board, as the solder connecting to pill will melt first before the heat gets to far into the driver board.