Best solder wick for working on 2600?

[SlowCoder]

As I'm working on my Atari's I'm noticing how nice it would be to have some solder wick!

 

All you guys who work on the boards, I have seen both 1.5mm and 3mm wicks. In your opinion, what do you think the best would be?

 

I've also noticed that some ads mention rosin, which I know helps with the wicking action. What's your opinion on that?

Edited August 20, 2010 by SlowCoder

[jamesk]

As I'm working on my Atari's I'm noticing how nice it would be to have some solder wick!

 

All you guys who work on the boards, I have seen both 1.5mm and 3mm wicks. In your opinion, what do you think the best would be?

 

I've also noticed that some ads mention rosin, which I know helps with the wicking action. What's your opinion on that?

 

IMO that's a difficult question. I've had crappy wick and good wick. These days, and maybe it's bad technique, but wick isn't working for me. When dealing with old boards what I usually do is rub the joints with alcohol, then I add some new solder to the joint. If it's a really tough joint I use some flux from a pen. Then I use a vacuum solder sucker to remove the solder. It takes a little work but it does the job. If the lead is pressed up against the PCB then bend it lightly towards the center with the tip of your iron. Then remove the solder with a solder sucker.

[Rybags]

The wick has a flux coating which helps with the desoldering.

 

Common advice and my experience is that you're best off in many cases using a pump first and using the wick for the mop-up operation. It's really the only way you'll non-destructively get ICs out anyhow.

 

You can go through the wick at a fair pace, may as well get both 3mm and a smaller size.

 

Additional to all that, using lead-based flux-core solder is also part of a desoldering setup - keep the iron tinned with it, and use it in the cases you need to buildup more area on those joints that are hard to remove.

 

Flux paste is another... although I found that once I got good at just using more solder/pump/wick, that it isn't really a vital part of the process.