A litany of dumbassery

Way back, @fredrik mentioned desoldering needles:

I bought some on AliExpress or eBay or something. The ones I got were cheap. They were nasty. Only one actually fit through most of my PCB holes. I had limited success using it.

Today I needed to clear out the holes after I unsoldered those 120Ω resistors before putting 120k resistors in their place. Due to the slide pots mounted on the other side of the board I couldn’t heat from one side and poke a toothpick from the other. So I tried the desoldering needle. It bent.

So then I tried using a sewing pin instead.

Held with pliers, of course. It worked pretty well.

Not hollow, so not good for pushing a lead out of a hole, but okay for opening holes up. And if I ever bend one I have about a hundred more.

3 Likes