EEVblog

How to remove surface mount SMD QFP packages from a PCB using ChipQuik low melting point alloy solder.
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[@hellterminator]

18:34 “Be careful if you've got nearby passives of course.” 18:40 Desolders C8. :D

[@ACMHK11]

LMAO

[@peterlamont647]

LOL

[@ahmetasantas7099]

hellterminator RIP C8

[@Unrealdruiddd]

LOL that escalated quickly..

[@therealb888]

Lol that's why an engineer shouldn't do a technician's job!

[@Kriakoziabr]

Greetings from Russia. We have a popular method: Take Wood's metal (~ 42 % lead, ~ 40 % bismuth, ~ 9 % tin, ~ 9 % cadmium. Melting point is 68°C) or Rose's metal (~32 % lead, ~ 50 % bismuth, ~ 18 % tin by weight. Melting point is 95°C) Rose is more popular, since it does not contain cadmium and is less toxic. Apply at 400-450 degrees on lead-free alloy So you get an alloy with a melting point of about 110 degrees. Sometimes it is even inappropriate to heat the part in addition, it falls out by itself. After, MANDATORY remove the resulting alloy from the place of soldering, it is brittle and fusible. Thus it is possible e.g. SO8 desoldering chip without hot air. Chip Quik SMD Removal Kit for poor :-)

[@PunakiviAddikti]

Interesting. I'd bet that by slightly altering the amounts of ingredients, you could get the best alloy. That's probably what this patented stuff is.

[@Kriakoziabr]

@@PunakiviAddikti Maybe. But what is the point of changing something, if 100 grams of rose alloy costs $ 5.

[@PunakiviAddikti]

@@Kriakoziabr I mean refine the alloy to the point of perfection, which is probably what the patented commercial stuff is.

[@sherlockholmes1121]

Thanks for this valuable info, not easy to find info on these things

[@BillAnt]

In Soviet Russia they used hot Vodka to remove the chip. lol jk

[@DarthMaul41]

C8 is the most famous component on board

[@whitigir]

LOL!!

[@Bluscream]

?

[@dragdusan86]

I see what you did there 😁✌️

[@Max__Cat]

no! not the C8!😭

[@jackmclane1826]

The composition: 49% Bismuth, 18% Lead, 12% Tin, 21% Indium. This makes a eutectic alloy that melts at 58°C.

[@NunYa953]

This stuff is amazing! I use it mainly to remove ribbon cables that are hot bar soldered directly to the board. Have not lifted a pad since!

[@c2ashman]

Its the leftover stuff from the T-1000. So it must be expensive.

[@nhojyelbom]

btw, you can re use the chipquik balls! just use a brush dipped in flux, move into 1 big ball to re-use (with flux of course)

[@mariusmul]

Its excellent in any workshop scenario,it removes not only chips but those nasty TO3's,transformers,coils or whatever do not desolder easily from thick pcb's.Very handy.You can use much less after some practice,retrievable bits can be used again and its all at low temperatures.GREAT.

[@rubber20021]

Not bad at all, but the cost is astronomical!

[@chickenby]

the trick is to melt the original solder so the two metals mix, and then after you can heat it up much quicker, and this combined with a hot air gun is amazing. there are tons of other "low melt" solder options, all at much lower price points

[@cr4zyw3ld3r]

links? or name of brands?

[@beefstickswellington1203]

Yes and you don't need to drown it in solder like he did, either

[@frankt.1391]

12:46 Made in Mexico flips the chip => TAIWAN

[@em0_tion]

After OEM sticker... You never know the truth xD

[@untrust2033]

The sticker might be where it was assembled, the rest of the PCB has stuff all over it so the chip would be the best place to put it, unlikely they would use a sticker on the chip to show where that chip was made.

[@obiwanjacobi]

@18:40 What happened to C8!? :-P

[@sciencoking]

Called it!

[@MrGivmedew]

+Marc Jacobi it's called hollywood... :)

[@Racecar564]

Farewell, C8!

[@AutumnPuffin]

He's dead, jim -yoda kzbin.info/www/bejne/aZOvmISigJibn5Y

[@shamsulakmal]

need more fine tip

[@StephenRemde]

Poor C8.

[@phillipbartlett1819]

I love this stuff. Been using it since the late 90's.

[@mike7958]

I can vouch that this stuff works great. I had to desolder a 128 pin ultra fine pitch QFP from a donor board, clean it up, and reuse the thing on another board. I did it all without any damage to the pads or chip itself. And it was my first time using the stuff. So in the right hands, this stuff is worth every penny.

[@VauxhallViva1975]

Completely agree. So many people moaning about the price. If it's too expensive for your tastes - fine - don't buy it. But for those of us who want a quick easy and painless way to remove IC's or other parts, this stuff is magic. Expensive, yes, but then you are not doing your daily soldering with this stuff, only removal work, and you can save up the balls left over and re-use them on the next job, so if you save what you use, you can re-apply it to another job later and make it do twice the work that was intended of it, making it even more worth the cash. Dave was putting WAY too much on in this video, but that was only cos he had never used it before. When you have had a little practise, you can get the stuff to bridge IC pins without using anywhere near the length that Dave was feeding in there in the video, but as I say - he had not used it before. VERY useful stuff, and I would never let my workshop run out of this stuff.

[@jwuethrich8385]

agreed. i bridge with 60/40 first then add dabs and it lasts a long time.

[@tubastuff]

I've done the same by purchasing a small ingot of CerroBend 158 (used as a filler when bending thinwall tubing), filing off some to get it to powder form. I then take the powder and pack it around the pins of the QFP and then, from the underside of the board, use a 150W PAR-38 incandescent spotlamp to heat the area. The board heats evenly, the alloy liquifies and the QFP slides right off. No iron involved. Using the PAR38 as a heat source and a toothbrush, the board and chip clean up nicely. CB (now CS) 158 costs about $25 for a one-pound ingot. If you have a friend who works in radiology, you can sometimes get the stuff from them as it's also used as Xray shielding for selective radiotherapy.

[@SebuhHonarchian]

nice imma try that. got a lot of asics to desolder

[@bcsupport]

Dave: "I didnt have any ChipQuick..." ChipQuick: "Send Dave some free ChipQuick" Must be nice to be Dave.

[@marcusdudley7235]

How can you patent an alloy? At what point does another alloy violate the patent? If it has like 5% iron, 6% antimony and 89% other stuff for example and you manufacture an alloy with 5.2% iron, 5.8% antimony and 89% other stuff, would that be considered a violation? At what point does the proportion of constituent metals get diverse enough to render it "different" from a patented alloy, and who defines this limit?

[@punker4Real]

Marc Dudlee the patent system is screwed-up. they shouldn't be even doing software patents. since its author work. i.e copyrighted

[@Veikra]

they patent compounds found in plants nowaday... soon water and air will be copyrighted. Patents are a anti-competition tool used by big industries

[@dg-hughes]

Well I suppose you could also argue what's the point in creating anything new if you can't patent it at least for a little while. If an alloy didn't exist and someone put time, effort and a pile of money into discovering a new alloy why shouldn't they be allowed to patent it?

[@marcusdudley7235]

David Hughes I agree with that 100%, what I'm worried about is the scope of the patent and how it is defined. I've no problem with the principle of patents so long as they're not abused and alloys seem to be something that can be problematic if the definition of the alloy in the patent is too loose.,

Has anyone looked up the patent? It would be interesting to read what they actually patented. Usually, in these kinds of patents, the actual alloy or mixture etc isn't patented at all. But rather the manufacturing methods and possibly tools used to mix them together.

[@poduck2]

It also works well for multi-layer board through hole desoldering as well, if you don't have a vacuum desoldering gun. Even the cheap solder suckers have trouble with that.

[@tylerfreeman5041]

I wonder how well it works if the chip has a contact point on the underside. (grounding or thermal...) I assume it would get to it a little bit and begin displacing solder. I might have to pick some of this up to find out!

[@GeorgeGeorge-xj2bc]

It depends from the pcb structure also,if has ground plain layers and heat transfer zones the heat dissipates rapidly and not stays in the melted solder.

[@EEVblog]

Ah, thanks for that. Cadmium is a bit of a surprise. Sometimes used in wires to improve the strength.

[@SaderStel]

This is heaven for use with a hot air iron, just lower the temp, no stress for the chip and little components around will not get unsolder. Since it's such a low temp, maybe you can even use a fiber brush to brush away the solder that is left on tracks.

[@ralvarezb78]

I'll check the RoHS compliance. On the other side, Im asking about reworking if this alloy can cause reliability problems since it breaks when bending and shows to be fragile and resting alloy in the pads can cause "micro-fissures if they re .submitted to mechanical stress and high frequency mechanical vibrations... (I don't know, this is an hypothesis)

[@flushyoudowntheloo]

is the smd qfp salvageable after this? i need to remove the smd and put it on anothr board

[@BladeScraper]

seriously thats one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

[@greatstonedragon8443]

ChipQuik can also be useful for thru-hole repairs on multi-layer boards. With internal power and ground planes (and moron cad jockeys who neglect thermal reliefs), it can be next to impossible to remove snap-in caps and jack connectors without pulling the thru hole out with the component, further damaging an otherwise repairable board. Sometimes you just can't get heat into the solder joint faster than the power plane takes it away without burning the PCB, preheating or no. After removing excess solder with solder wick, a bit of ChipQuik and gentle wiggling makes it possible to pull the component out. Another use is getting all the lead-free solder out of smaller multilayer thru-holes. Occasionally you run into a thru-hole where the solder next to the power layer just refuses to melt. Apply a bit of ChipQuik to the pad, heat up a resistor lead with your iron, and insert it into the blob of solder. The lead pushes through the hole, and mixes the higer temp lead free solder with the alloy. It's then easy to melt all the way through the hole, and remove all the solder. ChipQuik is a great thing to have in an Altoids tin in your toolbox. After a bit of practice, you'd be surprised how long it lasts. And if you clean it off well with solder wick, any remaining residue tinned on the pads won't significantly change the composition of the new solder joint enough to cause a problem.

[@djake3971]

Hi, i have a question about this one. If i used it to desolder a chip of mine, will it affect the ability to resolder the chip in the future? And what do i need to know the most, before using this one carefully?

[@Electrolab1114]

Just used it to change my first HDMI Port... Good Stuff!!

[@Stormbolter]

I was left wondering if this paste is useful with the heat gun. My gut tells me that you can use the gun at a much lower temperature and melt onl the component where you applied the chipquik

[@OGmolton1]

great video, you sure the temperature of the iron wasn't too low for the chip quick to melt the existing solder?

[@memadmax69]

Great vid and thank you for the links to your other soldering vids at the end =P

[@CristiMihaiA]

@18:45, say bye bye to C8

[@mikegaming4924]

That looks useful, I wonder if you could remove QFP DRMos with it that has thermal pads under it. You would basically heat the IC to 220 degrees C and then the thermal pads would also desolder.

[@CodydeGraaf]

from an Amazon page (B+D enterprises): The composition is (Tin 12%, Lead 18%, Bismuth 49%, Indium 21%). The lead free ChipQuik version is the SMD1NL.

[@RC-Heli835]

That's pretty impressive! I took a TDA2003V out of my CB last night. It has 5 pins and was a real headache to get out.

[@imun1ty]

To be safe I would use Kapton heat resistant tape around all the other surface mounted circuits to prevent that chip quick from rolling over to those areas.

[@superxy1101]

For the smaller chip at 18:00, I can remove it with ordinary solder and flux...you just need to be quick moving around it to keep it molten...

[@GSimon850]

Shame about cap C8 being dragged to its death. Brilliant tutorials as always, keep them up.

[@DLTX1007]

Dave, i've used the smaller and larger air nozzles with a 858D to remove a 304-pin QFP, worked a treat! (Smaller ones if you only need to heat up the pins, the larger ones i use if there's a freaking thermal pad)

[@PunakiviAddikti]

I'm actually wondering, do those thermal pads sometimes go all the way through the PCB layers to form one solid heatsink?

[@sprybug]

It's like Terminator 2! XD

[@sivucit]

hi, do u have any video, on how to test integerated chip, I searched ur videos, could not find one, please your advise will be helpful

[@nauman1967]

One can also use Rose's metal which costs around USD 14 inc shipping for 75g. from ebay

[@pgccorp127]

Hi Dave can you do a demo about Huntron Tracker for board repair, thanks for all your videos, very useful!

[@notcranium]

This stuff is similar to Cerrosafe except with a bit lower melting temperature. It is an alloy of Bismuth, Lead, and Tin. The way it melts and crystalizes as it turns back to solid is very similar. There is a company (CsAlloys) that adds some Indium to the alloy and has the melting temperature at (coincidentally) the exact same as this stuff 58°C or 136°F. I've used Cerrosafe to get a casting of the chambers of my handguns for reloading purposes. It costs about $20 USD for a 1/2 lb ingot.

[@Jeff-Russ]

I know this is a pretty standard way to desolder SMD IC's but couldn't shorting all the pins be a problem if there is a capacitor in the internal design of the IC which is not discharged? You could be sending high voltage back into all the other pins.

[@thomaswilson4495]

Great video, Dave!

[@lucidbarrier]

Do you think this stuff would work with removing an HDMI connector on a graphics card? (through hole not SMD). I've tried wicking it with flux and solder wick, I've tried a heat gun but I can't seem to clear all the holes enough of that lead free solder.

[@N0Cashva1ue]

lucidbarrier Just out of curiosity... Why are you trying to remove an HDMI connector from a graphics card?

[@lucidbarrier]

I got one through ebay and it's got a damaged HDMI connector, otherwise the card works fine. I got some replacement HDMI connectors from China and thought I would give it a go and see if I can remove all those stupid little pins.

[@JGAN96]

lucidbarrier Sure, as long as you remove it before you install a new connector.

[@beerisgood8914]

+lucidbarrier Pre heat the PCB in the oven or a heater to about 100 C. You need a good solder sucker (goot are the only one I would use) apply a helping of flux and heat with soldering iron at about 300 C while applying fresh 60/40 lead solder, hold it there until the solder really starts smoking. Then while the iron is still on it, suck it up with the Goot solder sucker.

[@jagjitkumar2700]

Very nice Idea to remove chip with soldering iron 👌👍

[@gordslater]

Pre-warming to the board to 40 deg C would reduce thermal shock to the chips, may improve the molten working time too. The old way of doing that was a halogen encapsulated bulb (the ones with a flat "lens face" over the main envelope and reflector) under the board mounted facing upwards and maybe 100mm from the board underside. - fed gently to produce low heat from a variable supply to give slight warmth to the back of the board for a minutes or two. Don't melt things on the other side!

[@TWMist]

lol watch for passive and then removed C8. great work love the show

[@friedmule5403]

Great video! I have a simple question. First I do not know what I am talking about at all, so please bare with me:-) Would it not be possible to just use the soldering wig? You place the soldering wig on top of the pins and hold the soldering wig, totally still, then you are moving your iron on top of the soldering wig to get the solder to be absorbed, one side at a time, and when it is absorbed, you lift the chip?

[@SwapPartLLC]

I use a low melt alloy comprised of bismuth, tin, lead and cadmium. It melts at around 158F. A one pound ingot cost me $10 on eBay two years ago. I just apply some flux and melt some of the alloy onto the iron tip, or if I'm removing something like a MOSFET or IGBT then I'll just hold it above the component and melt a few drops. Maybe it's not as convenient as something in wire form, but It's cheap and very effective. Also, I know cadmium is bad so I do plan on trying something without it soon.

[@cctv4268]

pls post type of chipquik- ie it’s model number. that amazon link under video does not work! thanks

[@dalenassar9152]

Awesome! at timestamp 12:00 it looks like the four 'blobs' could have been flipped off clean by letting it dry a few seconds, and slapped the PCB upside down along that black connector on the side. Or did you want to demonstrate other things?

[@evmanbutts]

The chipquick 63/37 .8mm solder is my favorite, didn't know their name was ubiquitous with SMD removal alloys.

[@lBonaCl]

Any good tips for SMD microUSB connector pins? (same size, maybe a bit bigger). At work, my supervisor tells me to crank up the heat to max (about 550) and then apply solder after almost burning the thing. I tend to rip the pads off the board, is it really because of the excess heat or is it that I just don't heat it up enough. I use a small amount of paste flux. I am no pro at soldering, not at all.. Using similar Pace at work as you are.

[@trentjackson4816]

I have a powerful de-solder gun with custom trigger for through-hole work. Good for sucking up big excess too. You need to make dead certain that they are before you pull the trigger if you know what I mean.

[@daniell.1298]

I use chip quik since 2 years. It is the best way for desold SMD chips without special equipment. Really!

[@km5405]

is that stuff gallium alloy or something like that? not sure about low melting point alloys theyre pretty toxic if I recall...

[@PlaywithJunk]

I got an alloy here that melts at 62C. It is not made for soldering but the composition could be similar... It's made of Indium Bismut and Tin.

[@jonandersonmd7994]

bismuth ... the least toxic of 4 very seriously toxic metals ... : "Of the heavy metals including lead, mercury, arsenic, and bismuth, it is the latter whose salts are relatively the least toxic." journals.lww.com/em-news/Fulltext/2001/04000/Bismuth_Toxicity,_Often_Mild,_Can_Result_in_Severe.12.aspx

[@whoisme678]

So this can only be used where the equipment is not going to heat up ?

[@chaddkersey]

There seems to be some confusion among the commenters here about what a patent is. There is no secret. The whole point of patents is to be able to disclose information that you would otherwise keep as a trade secret. US patent number 5326016 A. "18% tin, 28% lead, 11% cadmium and 43% bismuth"

[@Gzalo]

Considering that it's expensive, can the solder blobs be reused for desoldering another ICs? Or does it get too impure?

[@niceguy60]

This is useful for removing faulty bad components. I would not use it to remove components you want to salvage to use on another board as a replacement part. In this situation i would highly recommend the proper equipment. There are situations where this stuff is prefered over a rework station. Yesterday I had to remove a broke flat flex connector from a pcb which was highly populated on both sides with small surface mount components and BGA chips. I did not want to take the chance of dismounting the other components so my rework station was out of the question. I pulled the ChipQuic out my tool box added some flux and the connector came off in less than 2 minutes with no damage to the pcb.

[@jwuethrich8385]

Dave, do it again but instead of using all chip quick, bridge evverything with 60/40 first then add little dabs about every 2-3 pins distance and let it mix in. Ive had the same bit for a few months now by using that method.

[@cmguitar50]

Great video - can the spent ChipQuik be re used? @ 12:54 Did Taiwan merge with Mexico??

[@thehumbleone1983]

Hi mate I enjoyed your video a lot now I'm gonna have my first attempt as well thank you so much

[@bestbuildpc]

What kind of soldering iron are u using?

[@BRATWURST1]

The alloy is probably woods metal which contains cadmium,bismuth,lead and tin.The type we used at work had a melting point of 70c.

[@Marineio]

BRATWURST1 Would they be using very toxic cadmium in a product like this?

[@SWRadioConcepts]

I would imagine this would absolutely make the surface mount joints more brittle, leading to the notorious failues of broken connections on surface mount chips (especially GPUs in laptops), where board flexing is common in normal use.

[@BillAnt]

Well, you would clean up the residual ChipQuik with a desoldering braid and lots of flux, whatever's left is negligible as it mixes together with fresh new solder.

[@musico119]

what is the blue sticky thing to hold the chip?

[@blaaaaaaarghable]

I've seen it as an anti-corrosion coating on mil-spec connectors, for use in environments with lots of salts present.

[@SomeMoreVideos2468]

It says tin, lead, bismuth, *indium* on the datasheet I found on Farnell. I don't imagine cadmium would be legal for sale in many parts of the world. Presumably it's the newer version of it if the old one did contain cadmium. Percentages are: Sn12, Pb18, Bi49, In21.

[@dev639]

I've seen this kind of alloy before, it could either be gallium or indium. Indium being very popular around my area.

[@scsswyatt]

Does anyone know if ChipQuiks normal no clean 63/37 solder is any good, I have been thinking about trying some as I ran out of solder a while back and their 1oz spools seem appealing as I don't solder often.

[@urdnal]

Essentially, any name-brand flux-core 63/37 will be as good as any other, unless you have very specific needs (you'd know if you did). Most no-name ones out of China would probably be fine too but no sense in risking it if you don't use it often. I bought a 1lb spool of the finest gauge Kester that was 1/3rd the price because it was 20 year old stock. Works fine and I don't see myself ever running out.

[@jeanjeanduvent]

63/37 is good; as it is produced in large quantities in China you're unlinkely to get scammed; if you got scammed they will probably replace it by 60/40; which is less expensive but exactly identical for amateur/low constraint professional use.

[@DrDoomhub]

Would this work to take off hdmi ports and type c ports? Very interesting

[@dumbo800]

At 10% cadmium, wood's metal isn't the greatest choice. Is Gallium metal an effective replacement? I know that it amalgamates with Al, but have no idea how it reacts with Sn/Pb solder.

[@arado240dd]

amazing, never seen smd before, need the tools , heat gun, jigs, adjustable iron

[@Doviruses.existbaileyonodysee]

Odd question . . . If you had some copper wire that you could bend to wrap the perimeter of the pcb then plug onto a heat gun. Would that work, or would ot not get hot enough?

[@mistyakins9521]

Neat idea, I just thought what if you were to use solder wick instead of copper wire? I like to make things that make life easier for me, or any of the over worked working man.

[@sciencetestsubject]

according to the MSDS on digikey (product-detail/en/SMD1/SMD1-ND/304148) the proportions are slightly different, and the Cadmium is replaced by Indium.

[@ginnystevens9658]

Once the chip is removed, how do you get the solder off the chip? I want to reuse the chip.

[@ultimationee]

Damn that stuff looks good. I'm really tempted to buy some now.

[@EEVblog]

Could probably reuse it, but it would surely get more impure each time, and the melting point would get higher.

[@bonnome2]

I wonder if you can use liquid metal from cpu coolers to remove smd's

[@Kholaslittlespot1]

Basically pure gallium. Not sure but interesting thought.

[@paulbendel]

Is there a way to make the blobs go back to wire form?

[@EEVblog]

I did, and didn't see it. Whats the problem?

[@Berny-cn8iu]

That's pretty impressive!

[@PauloConstantino167]

It's made of some Galium or Indium alloy, which are metals that melt in your hand.

[@thehearth8773]

It seems likely to be Cerrolow 136 (49% Bi, 21% In, 18% Pb, 12% Sn), from the information I can find. The melting point matches, though the MSDS for ChipQuik's non-lead-free alloy (which is the one that has a 58° melting point) seems to imply that it contains silver and antimony, which Cerrolow 136 does not. However, the only information on silver and antimony is stating the hazards of said metals and that "Product contains one or more of these metallic elements in varying percentages", so it might just be unmodified Cerrolow 136.

[@BigDaddySeany]

Woah, you lost C8 at the end there! That's some great stuff for desoldering!

[@ziadfawzi]

Thank you so much.

[@jfaria]

I also like the solder pump better than solder wick, I find it cleaner, but with a solder pump there is a larger risk of accidentally damaging very small traces.

[@CyberVerme]

And how to remove ChipQuik from chip?

[@Chalky.]

I'm a train wreck at removing SMD chips so could certainly do with some of this.

[@AndreasA.S.]

why not low temp, high tin solder and hotair?

[@kopczas]

is it useful with hot air?

[@odioaleman]

Acording to its patent the allow is: Sn42/Bi57.6/Ag0.4 or Sn96.5/Ag3.0/Cu0.5 they have both listed

[@twitchingdan]

+Jaime Cernuda 42/58 is just low-temp solder. 96.5/3/.5 is this.

[@hellterminator]

+TwitchingDan Sn96.5/Ag3.0/Cu0.5 is regular lead-free solder.

[@twitchingdan]

***** All my regular is 60/40 or 42/58. I've never seen 96.5/3/.5 on normal solder.

[@hellterminator]

TwitchingDan Regular *lead-free* solder.

[@twitchingdan]

***** 18/64/14/4 Sn-Ag-Cu-Zn is the lead free I have. Hmm.

[@h11angel]

blimey! interesting video. noticed the damaged pad at pin ~35 before you pointed it out :D

[@sonylouisjean9532]

Thank you so much I will buy it.