# Desoldering Pin Question 2



## BillBrakeman (Jan 3, 2008)

In his thread Toddalin talks about a wire breaking at a pcb board solder joint and asks what to do to repair the damage. I would like to know what are some of the "secrets" of keeping this damage from occurring? Can anyone help?

Bill


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Sometimes if I have them, I'll use plugs on the board so the subassemblies can come away intact.

But often, as in this case, once a project is started, it's only a little more effort to make it do something more, and with all the parts already in the bin, what started as a few manageable wires can become a rats nest.


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

Once a board is built and working properly, some use hot glue to remove the wire strain at the board. Heat can melt the glue if needed.
I prefer real glue as the hot summer sun will melt the hot glue and cold weather makes it brittle.

I once had an Aristo caboose I left in my garage over the winter. When I took it out of the box I had an instant car kit, all the hot glue failed and I just had parts/pieces!!


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

BillBrakeman said:


> In his thread Toddalin talks about a wire breaking at a pcb board solder joint and asks what to do to repair the damage. I would like to know what are some of the "secrets" of keeping this damage from occurring? Can anyone help?
> 
> Bill


Bill,
My 2 cents - 

Most (all?) breakages of wires happen because something is being moved. Once the 'rat's nest' is done and working, leave it alone! 
If it must be moved regularly, then install a plug and un-plug it before you move it.

My experience with broken wires includes over-zealous wire stripping. If you strip the insulation off with too tight a grip, you can end up with just a few strands of wire to solder to the board. That's a recipe for an early break.


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## BillBrakeman (Jan 3, 2008)

Thank you, gentlemen, for you comments. I already try to protect any PCB solder joints with either hot glue or a silicon glue.

Where I have problems is I mount all the boards & then try to "neatly" connect them with "PnP" cables. By the time I fish wires out from under another board's cable to reroute it neatly to its destination. If I do this several times a joint somewhere is going to have broken.

One thing I have learned the hard way is to not plug a cable into its receptacle until after every other connection has been made.

Bill


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

BillBrakeman said:


> One thing I have learned the hard way is to not plug a cable into its receptacle until after every other connection has been made.
> 
> Bill


One thing that I learned the hard way is to continually "test as I progress" (especially after I've put in the voltage regulator). If I do use plugs, this may require several pluggings/unpluggings over the course of the project depending on the number of pins on the connector.

No one wants to get to the end of a project and have it not work with many possible suspects that could have been routed out along the way.


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