Solderpult De-soldering tool

Solderpult De-soldering tool

In this installment of tool discussion, we will talk about desoldering.  In my opinion, it’s one of the most difficult aspects of building guitar effects.  If you are perfect, you may never need to desolder any parts and that’s great, but… nobody’s perfect.  So here are my personal opinions on desoldering.

When building some kits or PCBs that are not from General Guitar Gadgets (not that you ever would), desoldering can be nearly impossible since some PCBs are single-sided and the pads will easily lift off the PCB base and make things much more difficult to fix.  GGG PCBs are not made like this.  They are double-sided, plate-through-hole PCBs and can usually withstand several re-works with virtually no damage to the PCB.  

My tool of choice for desoldering is the Edsyn Solderpult.  There are many similar spring loaded desoldering tools.  Accept no substitute!  I have tried some of the work-a-likes, some that look almost identical, but none function as well as the Edsyn Solderpult.  I don’t work for the Edsyn company.  I don’t even know who they are.  All I know is that this is the best desoldering tool I’ve ever owned.

If you do any Amp building/repairs, this is the same tool you see on lots of amp mod/repair videos.

So here are the caveats:

  •  I’ve never used any of the pro desoldering tools and they are generally fairly expensive, so I know virtually nothing about them.  However, I do have my eye on this  https://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fr300.html
  • I’ve tried the solder braid stuff.   I had no success whatever with that method.  I know a lot of builders that use the braid, but I’ve found the solder sucking method to be much more direct and forceful.   

As always, I’d love to hear your comments

JD Sleep
General Guitar Gadgets