Snipping old caps

[soop]

I'm watching GametechUS on youtube (on a Friday night, go me) and he snips the caps with short nosed snippers, and it actually seems to do a decent job.  What's the consensus of this technique?  Any downsides?

[crazydean]

As opposed to what? De-soldering?

[soop]

Yeah

[crazydean]

Personally, I prefer it because you don't have de-solder both legs of the cap simultaneously. Also, you're not adding any heat into a possibly damaged cap.

The only downside I see is if you get sloppy and cut into the cap, causing electrolytic fluid to spill out. If you don't have enough room to get snips between the board and the cap, and try to cut it anyway, that could cause a rupture in your cap.

[Cordelay]

I know next to nothing about soldering/desoldering, but I tend to think that the more cautious you can be with old hardware, the better.

Voultar talks  in one of his videos about the risks of snipping a corroded cap and taking the pad with it (might be this one, but can't be certain

). He uses a hot air station instead, but maybe you could desolder and lift them one leg at a time...

Best of luck!!!

[crazydean]

Wait, are you talking about SMD caps? If so, then you are definitely going to ruin a pad. I thought we were talking about radial.

If a component is soldered to a pad, always heat the solder. If it has legs, feel free to snip away.

[Cordelay]

I assumed Soop was talking about SMD caps, since I've seen various GameTechUS where he does that, and maybe if you know how to do it without applying to much force upwards it works well...
(I won't try it with my pc engine gt though  )

[MNKyDeth]

Its really trial and error to see what works best for you.

I have had caps that were so dried out that once I put a hot air station to the cap to heat the solder for removal the cap exploded and I didn't have the hot air station on it for more then 2-3 seconds.

Some solder corrosion is so bad that it's nearly impossible to heat and melt it before cap popping and other damage happens to the traces from all the heat.

Honestly, imo... Remove the caps carefully any way that is within your capability to fix if something should go wrong. And remember.... Wash the entire boards thoroughly before putting new caps back on. And remove the op-amps in the audio area so you clean under them. Test the traces through the board before putting caps back on can help to find bad traces with less stuff in your way for testing.

[soop]

Yeah, I'm talking about the og surface mount electrolytic caps.  But tbh, I'm still scared to do it myself

[Cordelay]

This guy does a damn fine job repairing broken pads in this video

Hope you don't need it though!

[soop]

This guy does a damn fine job repairing broken pads in this video

Hope you don't need it though!

Dude, this guy is hella good!!  One of the best solderers I've seen, I think I'll subscribe

[Zero_Gamer]

This guy does a damn fine job repairing broken pads in this video

Hope you don't need it though!

Dude, this guy is hella good!!  One of the best solderers I've seen, I think I'll subscribe

The guy looks like he has a pretty expensive setup. Having the proper tools makes any job easier.

[Keith Courage]

I like to grab and twist the old caps off using a pair of small pliers.

[Ergot_Cholera]

I usually remove SMD electrolytic caps by wiggling them back and forth until they break from the board and leave their legs behind on the pads.

[soop]

I literally don't know.  Like... It can't be worth f*cking up a boxed GT over the wrong decision...  And Keith is someone I hugely respect as being way more talented than me.  Yet I've seen others who say in bold capitals DO NOT DO THIS.  Agghhh