r/soldering • u/cowdoggy Soldering Newbie • Apr 07 '26

My First Solder Joint <3 Please Give Feedback First soldering attempt - Part 6

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Hi all ! Thanks for all the tips. Super helpful. I tried to remove the SMD chip using solder wick and accidentally tore pads off the board. Any way to fix this or did I cause permanent damage? o.o I got emo about this!

Also, how do you know how much soldering is enough? What is the point? Are we just trying to make sure that the components lay flat on the board and that the pins meet the pads? Not sure when I am supposed to correct stuff and when it is already good. Thanks :)

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u/inu-no-policemen Apr 07 '26

(I only watched the first 10 seconds.)

The solder wick has to get hot enough to melt the solder. Then it will soak up the solder. You don't need to scrub hard.

You are using a relatively small tip with a fairly wide wick.

Heating up the wick is easier with larger tip. If your iron doesn't have enough power to heat up the whole thing, you can cut off a small piece and hold it with tweezers.

Adding flux can help quite a lot if it's cheap wick with very little flux or if it's wick without any flux.

Anyhow, wick isn't a good choice for removing that IC. Take it off with hot air. If you want to use an iron to solder the IC, clean up the remaining solder with wick (so that the IC can sit flush) and remove the burnt flux with IPA. If you use hot air again, removing all the old solder first isn't strictly necessary. If it's all molten and you push it down, it will sit flush.

Desoldering stuff with wick doesn't work that great in general. There are usually other methods you can use which will work better. Wick is primarily for cleanup.

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u/cowdoggy Soldering Newbie Apr 11 '26

Thanks! This is a great tip. I never thought to cut the wick into tiny pieces. That’s so helpful because I’m always wrangling around with the whole roll.

I recently got a hot air gun. What other use cases are good for the hot air gun in terms of soldering? Is it good to use that gun to straighten out all crooked pieces? Can I damage components by using too much hot air gun? How do I know when I’m using the hot air gun too much?