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18:34 “Be careful if you've got nearby passives of course.” 18:40 Desolders C8. :D

Greetings from Russia. We have a popular method: Take Wood's metal (~ 42 % lead, ~ 40 % bismuth, ~ 9 % tin, ~ 9 % cadmium. Melting point is 68°C) or Rose's metal (~32 % lead, ~ 50 % bismuth, ~ 18 % tin by weight. Melting point is 95°C) Rose is more popular, since it does not contain cadmium and is less toxic. Apply at 400-450 degrees on lead-free alloy So you get an alloy with a melting point of about 110 degrees. Sometimes it is even inappropriate to heat the part in addition, it falls out by itself. After, MANDATORY remove the resulting alloy from the place of soldering, it is brittle and fusible. Thus it is possible e.g. SO8 desoldering chip without hot air. Chip Quik SMD Removal Kit for poor :-)

C8 is the most famous component on board

btw, you can re use the chipquik balls! just use a brush dipped in flux, move into 1 big ball to re-use (with flux of course)

The composition: 49% Bismuth, 18% Lead, 12% Tin, 21% Indium. This makes a eutectic alloy that melts at 58°C.

This stuff is amazing! I use it mainly to remove ribbon cables that are hot bar soldered directly to the board. Have not lifted a pad since!

Its excellent in any workshop scenario,it removes not only chips but those nasty TO3's,transformers,coils or whatever do not desolder easily from thick pcb's.Very handy.You can use much less after some practice,retrievable bits can be used again and its all at low temperatures.GREAT.

Its the leftover stuff from the T-1000. So it must be expensive.

I've done the same by purchasing a small ingot of CerroBend 158 (used as a filler when bending thinwall tubing), filing off some to get it to powder form. I then take the powder and pack it around the pins of the QFP and then, from the underside of the board, use a 150W PAR-38 incandescent spotlamp to heat the area. The board heats evenly, the alloy liquifies and the QFP slides right off. No iron involved. Using the PAR38 as a heat source and a toothbrush, the board and chip clean up nicely. CB (now CS) 158 costs about $25 for a one-pound ingot. If you have a friend who works in radiology, you can sometimes get the stuff from them as it's also used as Xray shielding for selective radiotherapy.

the trick is to melt the original solder so the two metals mix, and then after you can heat it up much quicker, and this combined with a hot air gun is amazing. there are tons of other "low melt" solder options, all at much lower price points

Not bad at all, but the cost is astronomical!

How can you patent an alloy? At what point does another alloy violate the patent? If it has like 5% iron, 6% antimony and 89% other stuff for example and you manufacture an alloy with 5.2% iron, 5.8% antimony and 89% other stuff, would that be considered a violation? At what point does the proportion of constituent metals get diverse enough to render it "different" from a patented alloy, and who defines this limit?

This is heaven for use with a hot air iron, just lower the temp, no stress for the chip and little components around will not get unsolder. Since it's such a low temp, maybe you can even use a fiber brush to brush away the solder that is left on tracks.

I can vouch that this stuff works great. I had to desolder a 128 pin ultra fine pitch QFP from a donor board, clean it up, and reuse the thing on another board. I did it all without any damage to the pads or chip itself. And it was my first time using the stuff. So in the right hands, this stuff is worth every penny.

Dave: "I didnt have any ChipQuick..." ChipQuick: "Send Dave some free ChipQuick" Must be nice to be Dave.

Poor C8.

12:46 Made in Mexico flips the chip => TAIWAN

I love this stuff. Been using it since the late 90's.

Ah, thanks for that. Cadmium is a bit of a surprise. Sometimes used in wires to improve the strength.

ChipQuik can also be useful for thru-hole repairs on multi-layer boards. With internal power and ground planes (and moron cad jockeys who neglect thermal reliefs), it can be next to impossible to remove snap-in caps and jack connectors without pulling the thru hole out with the component, further damaging an otherwise repairable board. Sometimes you just can't get heat into the solder joint faster than the power plane takes it away without burning the PCB, preheating or no. After removing excess solder with solder wick, a bit of ChipQuik and gentle wiggling makes it possible to pull the component out. Another use is getting all the lead-free solder out of smaller multilayer thru-holes. Occasionally you run into a thru-hole where the solder next to the power layer just refuses to melt. Apply a bit of ChipQuik to the pad, heat up a resistor lead with your iron, and insert it into the blob of solder. The lead pushes through the hole, and mixes the higer temp lead free solder with the alloy. It's then easy to melt all the way through the hole, and remove all the solder. ChipQuik is a great thing to have in an Altoids tin in your toolbox. After a bit of practice, you'd be surprised how long it lasts. And if you clean it off well with solder wick, any remaining residue tinned on the pads won't significantly change the composition of the new solder joint enough to cause a problem.

@18:45, say bye bye to C8

@18:40 What happened to C8!? :-P

There seems to be some confusion among the commenters here about what a patent is. There is no secret. The whole point of patents is to be able to disclose information that you would otherwise keep as a trade secret. US patent number 5326016 A. "18% tin, 28% lead, 11% cadmium and 43% bismuth"

This stuff is similar to Cerrosafe except with a bit lower melting temperature. It is an alloy of Bismuth, Lead, and Tin. The way it melts and crystalizes as it turns back to solid is very similar. There is a company (CsAlloys) that adds some Indium to the alloy and has the melting temperature at (coincidentally) the exact same as this stuff 58°C or 136°F. I've used Cerrosafe to get a casting of the chambers of my handguns for reloading purposes. It costs about $20 USD for a 1/2 lb ingot.

from an Amazon page (B+D enterprises): The composition is (Tin 12%, Lead 18%, Bismuth 49%, Indium 21%). The lead free ChipQuik version is the SMD1NL.

It says tin, lead, bismuth, *indium* on the datasheet I found on Farnell. I don't imagine cadmium would be legal for sale in many parts of the world. Presumably it's the newer version of it if the old one did contain cadmium. Percentages are: Sn12, Pb18, Bi49, In21.

according to the MSDS on digikey (product-detail/en/SMD1/SMD1-ND/304148) the proportions are slightly different, and the Cadmium is replaced by Indium.

Dave, i've used the smaller and larger air nozzles with a 858D to remove a 304-pin QFP, worked a treat! (Smaller ones if you only need to heat up the pins, the larger ones i use if there's a freaking thermal pad)

Can I have 4 minutes of my life back? I hate watching this guy!

To be safe I would use Kapton heat resistant tape around all the other surface mounted circuits to prevent that chip quick from rolling over to those areas.

Shame about cap C8 being dragged to its death. Brilliant tutorials as always, keep them up.

Could probably reuse it, but it would surely get more impure each time, and the melting point would get higher.

I wonder how well it works if the chip has a contact point on the underside. (grounding or thermal...) I assume it would get to it a little bit and begin displacing solder. I might have to pick some of this up to find out!

I use chip quik since 2 years. It is the best way for desold SMD chips without special equipment. Really!

seriously thats one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

This is useful for removing faulty bad components. I would not use it to remove components you want to salvage to use on another board as a replacement part. In this situation i would highly recommend the proper equipment. There are situations where this stuff is prefered over a rework station. Yesterday I had to remove a broke flat flex connector from a pcb which was highly populated on both sides with small surface mount components and BGA chips. I did not want to take the chance of dismounting the other components so my rework station was out of the question. I pulled the ChipQuic out my tool box added some flux and the connector came off in less than 2 minutes with no damage to the pcb.

Just used it to change my first HDMI Port... Good Stuff!!

It also works well for multi-layer board through hole desoldering as well, if you don't have a vacuum desoldering gun. Even the cheap solder suckers have trouble with that.

For the smaller chip at 18:00, I can remove it with ordinary solder and flux...you just need to be quick moving around it to keep it molten...

I would imagine this would absolutely make the surface mount joints more brittle, leading to the notorious failues of broken connections on surface mount chips (especially GPUs in laptops), where board flexing is common in normal use.

I'll check the RoHS compliance. On the other side, Im asking about reworking if this alloy can cause reliability problems since it breaks when bending and shows to be fragile and resting alloy in the pads can cause "micro-fissures if they re .submitted to mechanical stress and high frequency mechanical vibrations... (I don't know, this is an hypothesis)

you don't need the special QFP hot-air nozzles - just use a normal 5-10mm one and move it around the outline.

I use a low melt alloy comprised of bismuth, tin, lead and cadmium. It melts at around 158F. A one pound ingot cost me $10 on eBay two years ago. I just apply some flux and melt some of the alloy onto the iron tip, or if I'm removing something like a MOSFET or IGBT then I'll just hold it above the component and melt a few drops. Maybe it's not as convenient as something in wire form, but It's cheap and very effective. Also, I know cadmium is bad so I do plan on trying something without it soon.

I have a powerful de-solder gun with custom trigger for through-hole work. Good for sucking up big excess too. You need to make dead certain that they are before you pull the trigger if you know what I mean.

easiest way to use chipquik is with a board preheater or 150c bottom heat below the chip!

Very nice Idea to remove chip with soldering iron 👌👍

Look at : farnell n°1850214 safety datasheet : 1311832.pdf it's a tin - lead - bismuth - indium alloy, very interresting for numerous pins chip to remove. Will catch a sample to make a DSC analysis. Congrats for all your posts Dave, like your style and explanations

I got an alloy here that melts at 62C. It is not made for soldering but the composition could be similar... It's made of Indium Bismut and Tin.

Acording to its patent the allow is: Sn42/Bi57.6/Ag0.4 or Sn96.5/Ag3.0/Cu0.5 they have both listed

Pre-warming to the board to 40 deg C would reduce thermal shock to the chips, may improve the molten working time too. The old way of doing that was a halogen encapsulated bulb (the ones with a flat "lens face" over the main envelope and reflector) under the board mounted facing upwards and maybe 100mm from the board underside. - fed gently to produce low heat from a variable supply to give slight warmth to the back of the board for a minutes or two. Don't melt things on the other side!

The alloy is probably woods metal which contains cadmium,bismuth,lead and tin.The type we used at work had a melting point of 70c.

Awesome! at timestamp 12:00 it looks like the four 'blobs' could have been flipped off clean by letting it dry a few seconds, and slapped the PCB upside down along that black connector on the side. Or did you want to demonstrate other things?

I did, and didn't see it. Whats the problem?

they consist of an alloy containing gallium and indium, pure gallium has a melting point of approx. 30 ° C however, caution is advised with gallium, because it destroys aluminum alloys

It's like Terminator 2! XD

I've seen it as an anti-corrosion coating on mil-spec connectors, for use in environments with lots of salts present.

Worked great, except for the two lifted pads and burnt spot on the PCB! I'll stick with my hot-air pencil, thanks.

At 10% cadmium, wood's metal isn't the greatest choice. Is Gallium metal an effective replacement? I know that it amalgamates with Al, but have no idea how it reacts with Sn/Pb solder.

Indium or Bisphmut alloy. Can get similar result adding 60/40 regular solder and flux and using a hot air gun.

lol watch for passive and then removed C8. great work love the show

There are wide-known and cheap similar alloys - Rose's and Wood's. Rose is cadmium free, Wood's is similar to what we see here. Cheap and widely available.

Great video - can the spent ChipQuik be re used? @ 12:54 Did Taiwan merge with Mexico??

isopropanol is an alternate name for isopropyl alcohol.

Been using chip quick for years, mostly for PCB's with sensitive pads where excessive heat would cause catastrophic damage. I will use it in conjunction with hot air station to minimize direct iron heat to pads, then clean pads and repaste for hot air replacement.

It seems likely to be Cerrolow 136 (49% Bi, 21% In, 18% Pb, 12% Sn), from the information I can find. The melting point matches, though the MSDS for ChipQuik's non-lead-free alloy (which is the one that has a 58° melting point) seems to imply that it contains silver and antimony, which Cerrolow 136 does not. However, the only information on silver and antimony is stating the hazards of said metals and that "Product contains one or more of these metallic elements in varying percentages", so it might just be unmodified Cerrolow 136.

I used this stuff for years repairing consumer electronics. I still have a tube of it .. this is a must have in your kit.

The price of this thing is just way over the top. An entry level hot air gun with a fair set of nozzles is way better option for a hobbyist.

I just kinda wonder: since basically even tiny amounts of added metals to the alloy can dramatically affect the properties and melting point of the alloy, would you be able to be assured that trace amounts of the chipquik wouldn't be sticking around on pads, on your iron, and pins, and mess with the properties of other things long after you've used it? My understanding is that even tiny amounts of bismuth added to regular solder alloys can drop the melting point by tens of degrees C, and this alloy seems even more specialized than just bismuth. I suppose it must at least be fairly good at what it does without causing TOO many problems, as obviously the stuff sells and is useful for what it's supposed to do, but I am just wondering if you could a) ever be sure that you've removed enough / all of it from all the things it'd touch in the process of doing its thing and b) be confident enough that the trace amounts left over won't muck with the properties of the thing (either board, chip, or both) you removed next time you put it back into use, or if it would potentially have any durability / lifespan / reliability ramifications. EDIT: derp, he mentions something about this at the end. Wasn't that far in when I wrote this.

I reach late to this discussion but any way: about the alloy used, by reading the MSDS ( or SDS) sheets of the product, you can get a clue about it's composition, in this case It uses tin, silver, bismuth, antimonium, indium and copper. About patents covering known alloys, the patents office can issue a patente if, and paste from the article I've read: "For example, an alloy composition with specified levels of alloying additions or a compound having a particular chemical formula may be sufficiently new and different to warrant patent coverage. However, the possibilities do not end there. Although a particular alloy composition or chemical compound may be known, the alloy or compound may possess some new characteristic or property. This is particularly true when it comes to metal alloys. Alloys containing a new type of metallic phase or combination of phases may be patentable. The microstructure of an alloy may be sufficiently new and different. For instance, an amorphous microstructure may be patentable, where only the crystalline form of an alloy was known before. Controlled crystal grain size or orientation may represent patentable features in some cases." www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-0004.html

Cool video ,where did you get that chipquik ? @11:56 what blue rubber do you use ? :)

Dave-try the low melting alloy from McMaster-Carr 88635K2, $102 for a half pound. Great video btw!

That Blu-Tak is REALLY blue! Nothing like the UK one.

I know this is a pretty standard way to desolder SMD IC's but couldn't shorting all the pins be a problem if there is a capacitor in the internal design of the IC which is not discharged? You could be sending high voltage back into all the other pins.

They should make all solder like this :)

Would it be better to use a 3-pass method to avoid desoldering other parts perhaps? Pass 1: apply ChipQuick solder at the lowest possible temperature, so the iron is too cool to desolder anything. Pass 2: reheat the applied ChipQuick at about 300 degrees to mix it with the original solder. You're only using one hand here, and there's no time pressure, so you should be able to move the iron more accurately and carefully this time. Pass 3: use hot air gun at a medium temperature to heat the chip on all sides and lift it off. Hot enough to melt ChipQuick, but again don't allow it to desolder other parts. It's very hard to move accurately when you have to work the iron on all four sides and try to pull off the chip at the same time.

The usual soldering technique with fusible solder (for example, Rose or Wood alloy). Minus - you need to VERY EFFECTIVELY clean it from this light-cryed solder before installing a new part! For forming a fusible film on a given surface it is very difficult to get a normal soldered joint! At one time, many firms got burned on this error. previously “tinning” the surface with bismuth and, as a result, getting a “cold solder” and a dump of ALL smd parts from their places! And yes - for those who use this soldering method, there is a separate boiler in hell

meh, just buy a cheap hotair rework station, and salvage a old toaster oven from a goodwill to use as preheat/reflow. If your going to be working with SMD's you going to want a rework/reflow station. Chipquick is just a temp solution (a expensive one at that)

Its nothing special its just gallium mixed with normal solder, The Gallium has a melting temp of around 30c mix that with a little normal solder to push up the melting temp then form it into a wire and bam you have ChipQuik. Real simple to make

BTW: Gallium as a ingrediant doesn't sound plausible. Google : Gallium & Aluminum reaction. It's goes through (fresh) aluminium like a spit ball through wet tissue paper. Unless you like your TO3's de-capped in the process.

Considering that it's expensive, can the solder blobs be reused for desoldering another ICs? Or does it get too impure?

Neat stuff. For cleaning the solder alloy off pads, I've also found that the isopropol wipes (or cotton swaps) actually works really well, significantly better than solder wick. Heating the alloy-covered pad up with the iron at low temp and using a cotton swab I've gotten gold-plated pads cleaned up enough to look just about as good as new.

Once the chip is removed, how do you get the solder off the chip? I want to reuse the chip.

I also like the solder pump better than solder wick, I find it cleaner, but with a solder pump there is a larger risk of accidentally damaging very small traces.

So this can only be used where the equipment is not going to heat up ?

Odd question . . . If you had some copper wire that you could bend to wrap the perimeter of the pcb then plug onto a heat gun. Would that work, or would ot not get hot enough?

It's made of some Galium or Indium alloy, which are metals that melt in your hand.

That's pretty impressive!

Looks like some kind of gallium based alloy which make the metals it touches brittle after a while, if that's the case its a really bad idea, i wouldn't use this any of this stuff without checking whats in it

NO YOU DON'T NEED TO USE THAT MUCH. Just ad regular SODDER.You need VERY LITTLE of this to work. You don't use this like sodder. Just clip off a tiny bit and add regular sodder to it. Just a tiny bit goes a long way !! Chipkwik is known as a eutectic metal or sodder. Adding this stuff makes the melting point lower than either sodder. ;-) And yes I'm miss spelling SOLDER on purpose ! ;-)

Dave @ 18:46 Capacitor C8 is no longer on the board, it is now in your soldering iron tip..

I agree. Normal nozzle and some good flux. This method is less expensive and more PCB friendly i guess.

"far too easy" C8: "wtf you just say?"

LOL, as Dave says "Be careful if you've got near by passives...."

pls post type of chipquik- ie it’s model number. that amazon link under video does not work! thanks

I was left wondering if this paste is useful with the heat gun. My gut tells me that you can use the gun at a much lower temperature and melt onl the component where you applied the chipquik

I've seen this kind of alloy before, it could either be gallium or indium. Indium being very popular around my area.

Yes it works , wonderful

I’m impressed! This stuff must really be good if a guy like you can use it successfully.

I'm a train wreck at removing SMD chips so could certainly do with some of this.

Would this work to take off hdmi ports and type c ports? Very interesting