Taking things apart

[Dragonlove]

other than draining caps before you de-solder them how do you go about getting beneficial parts out of a circuit board without destroying them?

[R.G.]

In salvaging things, you have to decide whether you can destroy the board to save the parts or the parts to save the board. If you have to save both of them, it gets much more difficult.

The trick is either to remove all the solder somehow, or to melt the solder on all the leads semi-simulataneously.

Removing solder can be done by vacuum desoldering tools or by solder wick. Solder wick works well in many cases.

There are soldering tools to melt more than one lead at a time.

Finally, if you can destroy the board to do it, you can melt the solder on the solder side with a hot air tool or propane torch and pull the part out the parts side.