Desoldering toys

New SFF mod in the works that needs 200W of power with no standard PSU. I've got a 200 DC-DC power supply from Mini-box and they're biggest AC-DC brick at 110W but that isn't going to get it.

I need more pow-ah. There are 2 sources for 200W power bricks that I've found, the Dell DA-2 and the Xbox 360. The Dell DA-2 is giving me no love with the DC-DC power supply. Apparently it's a known problem over at the AVSforums. So that leaves the Xbox 360 and it's proprietary plug.

And we come to the subject of this post, I need that plug receptacle off the Xbox 360 motherboard (its a trashed one that I got off ebay).




Normally I'd wail on it with solder, a solder sucker, and my soldering iron cranked to "11" but my success has been so-so doing it that way. Given the problem that Langer had, I didn't have high hopes.




Enter one of these purchased from The Game Train




It cost me about $65US including shipping.




The digital gauge on it says its putting out about between 800-900C cranked. Not sure if I buy that but I can't argue with results. It melts regular solder like ice. I mixed some regular solder on the back of the pins to get everything flowing.




A solder sucker and a few minutes later.









Not too bad for a first time. The plastic certainly took some heat. I mucked around with too much at first but its yards better than my soldering iron attempts.




Cleaned up the solder bridges





Closer….




Now I need a bigger solder sucker. I'm going to try to pull all the caps etc off next. Hints & tips from you re-flow experts appreciated.

Ever considered a desoldering station?

Nice job desoldering that connector, BTW

Thanks Elledan, considered one but can't find one for less than $65US. Any ideas?

Spend some extra money & get a used hakko 47x. I have a 470b myself, works like a charm on 4-layer boards with planes. Really, you should've bought a desolder station in the first place, too late for that I suppose though.

No not necessarily. I thought they were out of my price range looking at the new ones. Does your Hakko work anything like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8nX2yD96AM

Desoldiering Iron I've never used a desoldering station, I have used one of these before and they are simply AMAZING! Pulls vaccum while the tip melts the solder.

I couldnt find a direct link but if you wanted to put your 360 back together with that connector you could prob buy something like an intercooler and do something like this:

http://www.morse-code.com/id175.htm

@Morphes: It'd certainly be cleaner for what I'm building but the Nyko's have a rep for burning out. Can't handle the current draw. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-prevent-your-XBox-360-Nyko-Intercooler-from/. I'm actually using it for a SFF computer. Thanks though, they look pretty cheap. If I can't find a decent circular connector, I may pick one up to try.

Thanks vengence. That's do-able too pricewise. Hmmm...