# pin pulling aaaaaaaaaa one by one



## taborc (May 3, 2007)

Boy pulling them dang pins is one by one is a pain in the ass boy I have only done about 20 or 30 and im tired my hand is cramping all up LOL I thought it would not be that hard jokes on me o yea doing the HCI


----------



## lazersteve (May 3, 2007)

How are you doing this? I use a table vice to hold the connectors and a pair of pliers or snips to pull the pins, it's not hard on the hands at all this way. If you use the cell you don't even have to pull them. You should watch the Experimental Anode Tutorial:

Experimental Anode

Keep me posted. Sometimes your method is all that needs to be changed.

Steve


----------



## AuMINIMayhem (May 4, 2007)

agreed.. the tutorial on the anode would be very helpful for you.. I haven't even wanted to try pins.. it just seems like wayyyy too much work for little payoff..


BTW.. if I did decide to go the pins/connectors route, I see plenty of postings on ebay of people selling them.. Could anyone suggest what a fair price per pound of pins would be?.. I'm just curious if after all that work whether there's any remarkable payoff.. seems a bit tedious and risky to me.. I've peronally been finding large lots of scrap plated jewelery, I figure larger surface area, easier to handle and not so tedious.


----------



## lazersteve (May 7, 2007)

Chris,

You could even soak the whole header, pins and all, in an acid-peroxide bath for a few days and be done with it. Here's the starter link for the acid peroxide method:

Acid Peroxide Method

Be sure to follow the links referenced in the thread.

Steve


----------



## jmelson (Jul 20, 2007)

taborc said:


> Boy pulling them dang pins is one by one is a pain in the ass boy I have only done about 20 or 30 and im tired my hand is cramping all up LOL I thought it would not be that hard jokes on me o yea doing the HCI


What I do is use a wood chisel and a mallet. I put the chisel upside down, with the angled face against the board, and chisel the pins off. Eventually the chisel needs to be resharpened, but that is no big deal. You can get 90+% of the pin area off the board, and I often get 4+ pins per whack. You do get some small shavings of copper off the board, but those can be sifted out. I got 800+ grams of pins in one weekend this way. For boards with backplane connectors on one side, I can usually pull the whole connector housing off with pliers just by wiggling them back and forth a few times. This is for press-fit backplanes, where the pins are inserted first, then the connector housings are pressed on over them.

Jon


----------



## hilld2000 (Jul 23, 2007)

My fingers hurt :roll: 

I bought a 0.5" cold chisel over the weekend to try and harvest pins as shown in Steves tutorial. 
One problem,... Steves setup is ideal for such work with the vice, workbench etc... mine wasn't!

I found using the chisel very difficult.
The pins tended to bend before kind of ripping off the boards!
I had to work on getting the agle right, gripping the board, stopping the board slipping etc....

In the end I found a different method!

I have been using long handles tin snips to cut the fingers off... works great and leaves really neat edges. In the end I used the same snips to chop up the PCB to leave the pins sort of floating on a tiny bit of PCB.
I will post a picture shortly is anyone is interested.

I am intending to use the HCL+peroxide on both fingers and the pins 'cut' from the boards in this manner.


----------



## jmelson (Jul 30, 2007)

A cold chisel is made for mangling rusted-in bolts. I use a woodworking chisel, with decent steel, but obviously not a super high-end tool. It needs to be REALLY sharp to slice the pins off cleanly. I still mangle them now and then, but when you get the angle to hold the chisel right, it slices them off pretty cleanly.


----------



## Anonymous (Jul 31, 2007)

FIRST GET A PAIR OF NYLONS AND SOME SAND SIFT YOUR SAND THREW NYLONS. TAKE THE FINE SAND PUT INTO A ELECTRIC FRYING PAN FOUND AT ANY SECOND HAND STORE FOR COUPLE BUCKS OR A GRIDDLE. PUT SAND ABOUT 1/4 TO HALF INCH THICK IN PAN .TURN ON HEAT LAY THE BOARD IN ON SAND IN MINUTES TAKE NEEDLE NOSE AND PULL PINS WITH NO EFFORT  .IT WORKS GREAT EVEN WELL YOU WATCH TV ETC. EVENTUALLY AFTER PULLING SO MANEY YOUR SAND WILL BE FLOATING ON A BED OF HOT SODER.BUT WHEN THIS DOES HAPPEN OVER TIME JUST POUR OFF START OVER.


----------



## Anonymous (Jul 31, 2007)

YOUR REPLY WELCOME


----------



## Harold_V (Jul 31, 2007)

Please--------don't shout. It's not necessary. :wink: 

Please lose the "all caps" posts. They are not easy to read, and considered poor manners.

Thanks! 

Harold


----------



## goldsilverpro (Jul 31, 2007)

Very good idea, scrapper. Good way to control the temperature, too. I would also think it would be a good idea to have very good ventilation. Don't want to breath those lead fumes.

Good way to collect the solder, also. Besides the tin and lead values, there is gold in the solder. Actually, there is probably a little gold in all solder that's on boards, unless the solder in the wave solder machine was brand new. The Bureau of Mines once came up with a simple gold/solder separation method of stirring a certain small amount of aluminum into the molten solder. Their method was specifically designed for treating solder from wave solder machines. I don't remember if the aluminum was in powder or chunk form. The aluminum collected the gold (and, silver, I think). The aluminum didn't alloy with the solder and ended up floating on top. I think they then skimmed off the aluminum (plus, the gold). The gold was then recovered from the aluminum. Don't remember any details, such as the temperature that was required. Might be something to play with, USING GOOD VENTILATION!!

Many of these old Bureau of Mines Reports of Investigations (RI) are excellent but are hard to find. The ones sold on Ebay usually involve geological findings. They also produced a few on unique processes. A neat one I remember used a fused salt bath to sweat the copper off of scrap yard breakage, such as small motor armatures. These RI's usually can be found at the libraries of certain universities involved with mining, such as the University of Missouri campus at Rolla.


----------



## Anonymous (Jul 31, 2007)

goldsilverpro .Thanks for metioning ventalation yes thats important i do this on my 
porch witch is open air. this idea was first given me by a fifth genration prospector.after trying it i began to listen closely . just like cutting fingers from boards i use a pair of welders vise grips it snapsthem clean with very little effort.


----------



## scavenger (Sep 4, 2007)

I use metal paint scrapers and a small hammer. They and thin and flexible and quite durable. Sometimes I can two headers of at once if they are side by side. I process the whole headers in dilute nitric except for the white ones as the plastic reacts and expands and starts to flake.


----------



## macfixer01 (Sep 6, 2007)

For the wirewrap boards with press-fitted pins I have a decent method. Those holes all in a row weaken the board, and that's why those boards are generally made thick. I start the board breaking at each end of a row of pins using a pair of end cutters. I work it along and crack off that sliver of the board. Then most of the pins just drop out of the broken holes. As the board gets smaller each time and I lose leverage, I eventually clamp the other end of the board in a vice to hold it.

macfixer01


----------



## Never_Evil (Sep 6, 2007)

One quicky method I have used and works for me is set up a propane torch on a low/med flame. Continually moving the board so all solder heats evenly and use a pliers to pull the plastic housing from the board. 

A few words of caution is if you dont move the board enough it will catch fire and ruin any traces in the area and produce a nasty smell that sticks around for an extra day or two.

* Work with the flame aimed away from you for best safety measures *
Make sure you have goggles at the very minimum or go to harbor freight and buy a face shield to protect you from solder pops. 

If the board is heated evenly enough you can usually get two or three connectors at one time plus get any flatpacks on the board to recover.

After the connectors come off I use a mini needle nose pliers with the ridges to grab the fingers and pull them out. Discard the plastic into either a recycling bin if its the proper plastic or into the trash. Good luck if you try this method.

Hopefully in the next day or two I can either get a video or photos to post up.


----------



## orry (Sep 17, 2007)

Hi I use a dremel tool with a renforced cuting wheel. I just made a box to put my board in and put the tool in then I draped some clear plastic that you can get in the painting dept over the remaining hole so I could see and use my tool then I could do a a whole row of pins in seconds.They fly but the box catches them leaving them in the bottom. Once set it up it works great!! also works for cuting fingers without the box cost alot less than a scrool saw!!


----------



## lazersteve (Sep 17, 2007)

Orry,

Be careful when using a dremel to cut parts from boards, the vapors from the some metals and plastics can cause long term problems if inhaled. 

Here's a forum link to information you may find interesting:

Beryllium

Be sure to read thru the whole topic you may be surprised what your find.

Stay safe,

Steve


----------



## orry (Sep 17, 2007)

Thanks steve


----------



## Shaul (Feb 2, 2008)

I realize this is an old thread from Sept. but still..

I use a heat gun for pin removal, with excellent results. With the board edge clamped in a vise and heat applied to the back, the whole header can easily be removed with long-nosed pliers. No burnt boards, no resharpening of chisels, no beryllium dust.  

Just the usual Toxic Fumes.  

Anyone else?

Shaul


----------



## lazersteve (Feb 2, 2008)

Shaul,

I like the heat gun also, despite the fact that it's slow and uses oodles of power, I still like the clean headers it provides. :wink: 

Steve


----------

