Trouble with replacing 1797 sticks

[Newsplash]

Hi guys,

I bought elite 2's with broken sticks for me and a friend and I'm having a lot of trouble getting the through holes clear on a few pads after removing most of the stick to even install the new one. I noticed that the elite boards are a lot more difficult to desolder through hole components on too compared to any of the other xbox controllers i've repaired, I can usually get away with just solder wick alone when removing sticks.


Here's what i'm working with at this point: https://imgur.com/a/iCehnMV


I've been trying to melt the solder in the hole and suck it out, but it just seems that every time I use my solder sucker nothing comes off. I tried the sucker on one side and holding the iron on the other, but I still can't seem to get it to budge. I've tried adding more solder to both sides and sometimes I can get close and get half of the hole open, but not the other half. All of the other holes I cleared on this board were removed by solder wick alone, but neither wick or the desoldering pump will work for this. My temps are high enough to melt the solder too, I was keeping them around 350c. For my gear i'm using the ss02 desoldering pump and a ts100 with a chisel tip.

Is there anything I should be doing differently, or keep adding solder and trying to use the pump again?

Thanks for any help or advice!

[RDC]

There is a ton of ground plane there that acts like a big heat sink, which you also have to warm up a bit so the solder in the holes will stay molten long enough to be removed. You can try staying on the solder joint a bit longer, or bump up the heat a bit for the troublesome joints. Could also use a hair dryer to warm the area there up a bit. That's not going to get hot enough to reflow anything, but it will put some heat into the board so that the iron doesn't have to work as hard. A heat gun can also do the same, but that will damage things if not used carefully.

[wickated]

hot air 400c, copper iron tip. use it accurate cuz u can easily destroy throughgoles BEFORE desoldering them

[Newsplash]

hot air 400c, copper iron tip. use it accurate cuz u can easily destroy throughgoles BEFORE desoldering them

I was trying hot air at 400 and I was making some good progress, and thought I had every through hole clear when I tried to put the stick back in and I left a bit too much solder on a hole and now the stick is stuck halfway in.

https://imgur.com/a/3bIhTOm

I am able to get the solder on the back of the board totally molten, but I'm having a lot of trouble pushing the stick the rest of the way through. the stick is super hot to the touch at 400c heating from the back and I'm even using chipquik this time but I'm still having difficulty. Should I try melting the solder with hot air and just keep putting more hot air on it? how can I tell once the solder on the other side of the hole is melted enough?

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Newsplash]

Worked on it a bit more just now and was able to get the stick in place finally! Surprisingly, I didn't have to run any traces either. My issue was that there was a really small bit remaining of the old stick in one of the holes so when I thought it was clear, it wasn't and I couldn't push anything through without a ton of force. I ended up using my tweezers and soldering iron to clear the hole just enough for the new leg to fit in place.

Thanks again for all the help!