How Do I Strip down Circuit Boards?

No I have been trying to put the motherboards an circuit boards on an old grill. Heat it up an in hope would melt the solder an the chips would come off.

But is there any other way to do this faster at all. I just want the green circuit boards. but i dont know if there is dangerous deadly toxens within baking a motherboard? it smells just as any old computer lab...

anyways thanks for any input

Years ago, I worked as an electronics technician and used a hot air gun with various sized nozzle tip to remove the surface mounted chips and components.
But these things give off too much heat and will burn off the traces and warp boards if not done correctly.

You should get some solder wick and place it between the soldering iron tip and the soldered components.



This will suckup the solder like a sponge, then just gently flick it off the component.

You may have to lift the pins of stubborn IC's one by one with a needle tip as you heat each pin. Once all the pins have been lifter, you can twist off the IC from the PCB, but make sure all pins have been lifted or else you'll lift the copper traces too.

this is an extreme help. thanks for sure. i need to buy a hot air gun now. this should be interesting. do you know of any machines that can cut these boards. something simple an not to expensive?

Do the components have to be intact?

I've done this once using the direct approach.

Get some sidecutters and chop everything off the board at the pins, then do the mundane task of heating one side of the pin with a souldering iron and pulling from the other with a pair of pliers.

It wrecks the components but the board should be ok, use one of them vacuum guns to suck up any excess solder left on the board.

Sorry, I've never really tried cutting pcb's.
I want to say get a good straight even slice with a box cutting knife, then keep going over the same slice over and over till it's deep enough, then maybe do the same on the other side. At some you should be able to snap the board in half.
I don't know how smooth the break will be because some boards have multilayered copper traces underneath the surface that might give you jagged edges.

reply to post by ragster


I have a dremel that I use for various things and I bet it would work great for cutting circuit boards. It is a bit expensive, but it's come in handy more times than I can count for multiple purposes. I've had it for a few years and I cant get enough.