Desolder of capacitor

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magnus-fredholm asked Apr 13, '22

Desolder of capacitor

I have an EasyPlus 1600VA in my newly acquired boat. I decided to switch to LiFePo batteries and as such I want to reprogram the charger to support such a profile. When removing the lid to take a picture of the EPROM version, I noticed that a component visibly had gone up in flames.

After talking to the local "support" here in Sweden I was told nothing could be done and that I had to get a new one.

I managed to figure out what type and brand of interference suppression capacitor it was by comparing it to the other one that's located on the same PCB.I ordered a couple of new ones from China and went about trying to desolder the old capacitor to no avail. It won't budge and by the looks of it the solder won't even melt.

Does anyone know if Victron has sprayed it with some flame retardant material that prohibits me from desoldering it? I have a professional soldering station that goes up to 480 degrees celcius.

EasyPlus

20211127-115329.jpg (2.5 MiB)

20220304-125319.jpg (1.8 MiB)

20220304-123624.jpg (718.3 KiB)

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Alexandra ♦ commented · Apr 13, 2022 at 06:48 PM

@Magnus Fredholm

You need alot more thermal mass and heat. Two soldering irons....

You might like to consider requesting a replacement circuit board from the Victron Service Dept through your dealer instead?

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Trevor Bird answered · Apr 15, 2022 at 07:39 AM

Hold the edge of the tip of the iron against the wire and when hot add some rosin cored solder to your tip. The solder will melt and merge with the solder on the board. With a small screwdriver lever up that side of the component by inserting between the component and the board and twisting slightly. Add a little pressure until it lets go. When the solder is molten right through the board it will let go. It only has to budge a fraction. Now do the same on the other side. Keep doing that untill it comes out. You can buy "Solder Wick" or a "Solder Sucker" to remove the solder from the holes. Sometimes board quality will allow heat to damage the solder pads but these boards would be high quality and will handle quite a bit of heat before being damaged.

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magnus-fredholm commented · Jun 19, 2022 at 10:01 AM

Thanks for the solution Trevor!

I followed your instructions and it worked like a charm!

The capacitor has now been replaced and everything is working fine.

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Answer 1 · 2022-04-15T01:59:05Z

Paul B answered · Apr 15, 2022 at 01:59 AM

As Magnus says -

there is no special solder being used but victron do spray there boards with a covering of some type to reduce corrosion. As far as I know

it should be posiable to remove the solder in a normal fasion.

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Answer 2 · 2022-04-16T22:08:07Z

Kevin Windrem answered · Apr 16, 2022 at 10:08 PM

I suspect that Victron is using lead-free solder which usually melts at a higher temperature than tin-lead solder. Also the coating Paul B mentions can insulate the board and lead from the soldering iron tip a bit until you melt/burn thorough it.

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