Need help with soldering replacement Power Jack

[IceRedwing]

Basically my problem is that the soldering material that dell uses on the board is very little. I was able to remove the ones that had a decent amount of solder applied which were the ones on the sides.

Picture of a Power Jack

The gold pins on the center and back of the power jack were the ones that were very hard to remove. I googled some tips, and someone stated to use wire cutters to remove the power jack and it will become easier to remove the old solder since you can attempt it from either the top or bottom.

Unfortunately for me that doesn't hold true. I just can't soften up the old solder because the soldering tip I have seems to be too big to actually reach the solder, I end up heating up the pins and the transfer of heat to the solder isn't enough. Also for the record, I am using a fine tipped soldering iron... i'm unsure if I can find anything smaller

I tried apply new solder over the old one. But the old solder still doesn't soft up with the new one.

Does anyone have any tips or suggestion? If a picture of the holes is needed, I will disassemble it and take some. But hopefully someone has attempted to fix the recent dell power jacks (cause I know they have changed) and you can tell me how you got it out.

The board itself still works, and I'm currently powering the laptop via replicator. So hopefully that is an indication that nothing is broken

 

[Billb2]

File the tip of your iron to the size you need.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Your soldering iron may be underpowered for the job. Heating the pins enough will melt the solder.

A hokey sounding solution is to cut (Dremel, hacksaw, grinder, etc.) a ¼" strip out of a pre-64 penny (still made of copper then); shape one end to fit your needs, clamp the other end in Vise Grips, and heat the strip with a propane torch. When sufficiently hot, apply it as you would a soldering tip. A chunk of thick walled copper tubing, flattened with a hammer might also work.

I have actually used this a couple of times to simultaneously de-solder multiple contacts of a surface mount component.

 

[Laputa]

Whoever design this jack must be out of his mind. Couple options, you can find couple cheap weller soldering irons and have a few friends' hand to help you out. Have seen those hobby fine tip soldering irons at Fry's for around $9 and they do the job very good. All you need is to pull the plug on one side and heat up the pins from the back side with the extra steady helping hands if you can find some. If you can not find the extra hands, just figure out how to pull the plug from the other side while you heat up the pins on the other. A paperclip hanging on the plug with some weight will do the dirty trick. If you can figure out how to heat up all the pins at once, you are basically done. As for the replacement jack, you just need to heat up all the points and press the jack back into the board and add extra solder if necessary...but don't add too much.

 

[VeryCharBroiled]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Your soldering iron may be underpowered for the job. Heating the pins enough will melt the solder.

^^ agree.

when I replaced my brothers notebook power jack (acer I think) I used a 42 watt with a flat tip I filed a bit to get the shape i wanted. cleaned and tinned it, stuck a small jewelers screwdriver in the jack for some leverage, heated it from the underside while pulling the jack with the screwdriver and it was out in like 20 seconds of heating the pins in sequence a few times. just dont hold the iron in one place too long or you can damage the solders traces, heat a pin for a second or two, move to the next etc. keep steady pressure on the jack and it should come right out.