I needed some bits and pieces for a microcontroller project I am working on, a video monitor socket and ps2 keyboard and mouse sockets. Since I live in a small sugar farming town and the nearest city - Cairns is more a tourist town and 60km away, and it was 10pm at night and I am impatient, I decided to raid an old motherboard for the sockets.
Of course I was only armed with a soldering iron, no solder sucker or that braid stuff, this wasn't gonna cut it...the answer, I used a small gas blowtorch, heated the whole solder tabs in one hit and voila!!!
The only trick is to use a fair amount of heat and get the part out quickly before the PCB gets all charcoal and smells really funky, and I'm sure the smoke would be pretty toxic, but I did this outside...
PCI slot anyone ?
Russell.