Backwards PCB Soldering

[humpty53]

Hello,
After I soldered the PCB and the Raspberry Pi together, I realized that the Pi had been soldered on backwards. I don't have a clue on how to desolder this connection, and I would appreciate any ideas on how to fix this, if any.

[rodocop]

Careful use of solder wick and/or a solder sucker? Hot air station would likely help a lot too.

[144TECH]

[wermy]

Hoo boy. That is going to be tough. Solder sucker like in the video 144TECH posted will help a lot, but I think you'll need a hot air rework gun to remove it without ripping up some traces or otherwise mangling the pi and/or button PCB. Good luck!

[dryja123]

Hello,
After I soldered the PCB and the Raspberry Pi together, I realized that the Pi had been soldered on backwards. I don't have a clue on how to desolder this connection, and I would appreciate any ideas on how to fix this, if any.

SMD chipquik. Make sure you use plenty of the included flux and be extremely liberal with the alloy that it comes with. Work quickly with the iron and lift gently.

Like Wermy said, a hot air station would be ideal. You can pick up a decent one for $30 - $40. The trick to this is going to be patience and don't use force.

[abrugsch]

There is one saving grace... Usually desoldering something like this means you have to get all of the solder detached before applying any removal force because otherwise as wermy said you'll end up lifting some pads. But because you've soldered it the wrong way up, you might be able to slide a thin film of something in between the pi and the button pcb as you work your way along.
The other alternative is that as the pi is probably cheaper and easier to get hold of, then sacrifice the pi to make it easier to salvage the button pcb

[144TECH]

Yeah,.. just snip it off hehe buy new pi

[Helder]

Get a heat gun or borrow one and heat the GPIO area sweeping left to right so it melts the solder and then lift off. Best thing to do is pay attention to the guides and videos so this shouldn't have been an issue.

[humpty53]

I tried using the "thin film method", since I do not have a heat gun available. I decided to use an old AMC Stubs card to try and lift the boards apart, but it seems that this method has caused the PCB board to bend a little rather than lift off the Pi. I already placed an order for another Pi, should my current one get messed up during the process. With the current circumstances, I believe purchasing another PCB board when it's available again would be less costly instead of buying a hot air station or messing up my current PCB any further.

[dryja123]

IDK, hot air station is around $30. A Pi0w + PCB combo is $50 (including $5 shipping). Plus you'll get a lot of use with the hot air station if you're prone to making mistakes or if you have a need to desolder stuff. I think a hot air station plus SMD chipquik would be an absolute no brainer. You would have everything cleanly separated in less than 5 minutes.