Soldering help

[KeiCar]

I just busted the power switch off the motherboard of my Acer tablet

I have the unit dissembled and I tried my best to clean off the solder pads where the switch goes. Its a SMD design which Ive never done before. I would rather pay someone local to fix this, but if I cant find anyone Ill try it myself (gotta learn eventually).

Would a heatgun generate enough heat to melt the solder (im sure it will)? My problem though is that the switch has plastic components to it that might melt. Since this is a smd part, I cant get to the solder points, which are very small, with the iron to do it that way...

Any advice?

[leaftye]

You can melt solder with an soldering iron. Using heat gun... Ouch. That's like washing your hair with a pressure washer. I'm not sure about wicking the old solder though. Lots of kits have stuff to wick the old solder, I just haven't done it before. I also haven't soldered anything finer than 10ga wire. Good luck.

Try finding a community college engineering student? I bet one of them is decent with a soldering iron and won't charge much.

[KeiCar]

No you dont understand, getting to the solder points is difficult since there are other components in the way. The part blocking access is the vibrator motor, which is large (relatively speaking) and I would not be able to get the tip of my solder gun in there. Perhaps if I can get a smaller tip, but it would need to be VERY small, like the tip of a sharp pencil, small and a narrow shaft as well (don't laugh)....


Ahhh. this sucks.

[leaftye]

Can you access that point from the other side? Perhaps heat up the point from the back? Trying to get the timing of having everything stay hot enough before you install the part is going to be tough though.

You could file down the tip of your soldering iron. Lots of people, myself included, do that to make inexpensive hot knives. You'll need a different shape tip, but it's the same principle.