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Drilling out solder from capacitor holes

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    Drilling out solder from capacitor holes

    I have an xbox 360 board that had 4 leaked electrolytic capacitors. I desoldered all 8-10 capacitors (1500uf 16v) since 4 leaked and wanted to replace all of them. 2 capacitor legs broke and were stuck in the through hole.

    My two solder suckers just didn't work and I decided to use my dremel lite in the lowest speed to drill out the broken capacitor legs. I used a carbon drill with the exact diameter size as the capacitor hole. I drilled out the capacitor legs but I think that I damaged the holes. I don't think that the solder will adhere through the hole if If I solder a new capacitor.

    My question is does the solder not only adhere to the upper and lower pads on the board but does it also adhere in through the hole? Is there a circular pad that also goes through the hole?

    #2
    Re: Drilling out solder from capacitor holes

    The holes can be plated, non plated and partly plated. Don't drill holes out, use these https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33004594843.html or a needle to clear the hole.

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      #3
      Re: Drilling out solder from capacitor holes

      Observe this diagram first:


      Now, it doesn't matter if you have the same exact Xbox 360 motherboard version as the one above. All of the 16V, 1500 uF capacitors in the Xbox 360 (old/phat console) are connected to the 12V rail. However, the 2x caps near the GPU VRM are connected together after a PI inductor, and the 4x caps near the CPU VRM are also connected together (after a different PI inductor). So technically you shouldn't connect the cap with the destroyed hole anywhere on the board's 12V rail. Depending on where that cap was, you will either have to connect it to a 12V point on the GPU high-side VRM, CPU high-side VRM, or 5V_aux high-side VRM... or perhaps if it was that lone 16V 1500 uF cap right by the power connector - that one is the 1st filter cap on the 12V rail before any of the PI inductors mentioned above, so connect that one directly to the power connector pins that have 12V power. Use multimeter to find these.

      As for drilling holes - DON'T DO IT! Ever. It will always damage the hole's via, and then you'll have more of a headache (but you probably already know this now :\ ). If a cap lead becomes broken and stuck in a hole, forget about using a solder sucker. Use needle-nose pliers and a regular iron to pull it out from whichever side still has something sticking out. In fact, I don't suggest anyone to be using a solder sucker for the Xbox 360 motherboards. Their ground planes are too thick, and unless you are really experience with your solder sucker or have a really high quality one, chances are, it will be harder to remove the caps with that than just using a regular soldering iron and rocking/"walking" the caps back an forth, as shown by this method:
      https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...7&postcount=23

      All of that aside... I'm curious - what brand and series were the 4 leaked electrolytic caps you found? Were they the 16V ones or 6.3V ones? If they are the 16V ones, see this thread for proper replacements (and which brand and series to beware of for the 16V caps):
      https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=98012
      Last edited by momaka; 10-06-2021, 06:28 PM.

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