Trying to De-solder an Xbox Elite series 2 gaming controller.

[TjMOTS]

Hello my name is Tj and I'm very new to electronics and honestly forums in general. I just recently finished my first project which was an alarm clock soldering kit from Amazon. My friends Xbox controller is broken and me just finishing this clock figured I could help him out. I think I found the component that is the cause but I can't get the solder to melt and stick to my solder wick. I can't even get it to melt when I stick the iron straight on it. I'm using a X-tronic model #3020 soldering iron controller at 450°C. Any help would be appreciated.

[sam_sam_sam]

You are going to have issues with multi-layer boards are sometimes hard to work with
I have had to use a Desoldering Gun and a temperature controlled hot air gun

You do have to practice using this setup on boards that you do not give a shit about

[petehall347]

try adding new solder first .

[stj]

try not burning the flux, you dont solder at 450' - you need 350'

[momaka]

Like SAM noted, try practicing on some scrap boards first to get a feel for SMD work. Also, forget about using wick with that soldering iron - it's not going to work well at all. You need good flux instead, as that is key to SMD soldering. Would also probably be useful to have some 60-40 leaded solder around (if not straight low-temp melt solder) to soften some of the lead-free solder on the board.

Originally Posted by stj

try not burning the flux, you dont solder at 450' - you need 350'

350C won't be any good though, as his station uses 900M series tips. Those are just not good enough for soldering on tougher Pb-free ML PCBs (which the Xbox is.)

T12 is where the money's at. With a powerful-enough station, those can transfer a lot more heat. I regularly use my 75-Watt T12 station to directly desolder TO-252 MOSFETs from Xbox 360 motherboard with the help of a 30-Watt iron. No hot air or pre-heating needed at all.