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Comment by unxdfa | Hacker News Reader

Braid ALWAYS works if you know how to buy it, store it and use it properly.

Buy it -> chemtronics soder-wick. Do not buy anything else.

Store it -> store it in a zip lock bag not just chucked in your draw or crap box.

Use it -> Use an iron which can actually deliver energy quickly without overheating the workpiece (Metcal!), place the wick at least 1cm in from the end onto the joint and hit it hard from the other side in a iron, wick, joint sandwich until it stops creeping up the wick. Do not stop until it's done or it's game over for that joint.

99% of bad wick and soldering experiences are crap irons, crap solder and crap wick.

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I mostly agree with you but sometimes through hole joints just won't wick all the way because of the extra surface tension around the pin on the opposite side of the pcb. Not a huge deal if you can access it, but if you can't, like under an electrolytic cap, it's a pain. Even with my metcal and chemtronics wick. Sometimes preheating the joint can help but I almost always end up just destroying the cap.

If they are big cans like the old Sprague ones, I use a crap desolder station and the metcal at the same time. I wouldn't hit them with wick. That's for small components.

Question - you mention caps, I've always found them to be the easiest component to desolder. Just heat one pin and rock the cap using your other hand, sometimes you need to rock back and forth several times if the layout is tight, but this method applies way less heat to the board and cap. Once the cap is out, even one of those useless solder suckers will easily clean the hole in the board. You pretty much need to have a vise or some sturdy way of holding the PCB where you can access both sides, but this works way easier and doesn't destroy the cap or delam the board.

Yeah through-hole you want a desoldering gun. Using a wick is too much work for that IMO.

Something I've found that helps is to snip off a section of wick and hold it with a pair of ceramic-tip reverse tweezers so you don't have the rest of the roll leeching heat from the section of wick that you are using.

Tip: Solderwick goes bad after while.

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