hey guys, im in the middle of doing the mod, for the window switches, i did the passenger side switch to start off with, and it came out great...i then tried one of the switches in the back and ran into some trouble, i may have ruined it, im not really too concerned, they r in the back, and i can live with em not being lit, if i ruin them....but i cant get the chip off of the board to save my life, i heated up the contacts got em soft, but before i can get around to getting all 4 of them soft, they harden immediately....so i can never quite lift the chip up....i used tweezers to get a good grip on the chip, and it broke the top half of the chip, so its barely even possible to get a good grip on them...anyway to get them off? some kind of way to "scrape" it off or something, thanks for the help if possible....

 

bump...........

 

Still No Help At All? Someone Help Me Out With My Switches????

 

You could try using a solder braid. It's just a copper braid. Just lay it overtop of whatever you want to desolder then put the iron on top of the braid. The solder will flow to the hottest material. Which, in this case, is the copper braid. You can pick one up at Radiosmack.

I have done my '97 rear switches successfully with blacklight (UV) leds, and they look sick! I have done a few others on the .org here also. If you want, I can do them for you for a small fee.

Whatever you do, don't heat the board up so much that the metal pad detach from the PCB. This is very hard to repair. I accidentally did this to mine, but I was able to repair it. You should not be leaving the iron on the board for more than 15 secs, and that's pushing it.

Hope this helps... Good luck!

drew

 

http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/624467

page 2

 

thank u, 99se5spd, i used that write up to do my switches....i guess, i do have to use the copper braid, i see how it works....once i suck all the solder off i can easily pull the led out, i got u....that should be simple, thanks, i need help on my driver''s side panel, imagine this...u do everything carefully, u remove the leds nice and easy and cut the new ones going in, and then solder the new ones in the same exact way u removed the old one, all positive legs of the new led were in the same places the positives were on the old ones, and same for the negatives, then u plug them back in and NOTHING! how frustrating is that? the passenger side is in and it looks good....can u help me out please?

 

bump..........ill paypal the first person that can help me out $5 just for advice......

 

Here's my advice, don't use the soldering braid method. I've found that having too little solder on a contact when trying to remove an item can be a ***** because it hardens too quickly because of the relatively small surface area esp when working with 4 points. I say put a decent amount of solder on each connection that way it takes longer for the solder to cool and you can heat up each connection point easier at the same time.

For the rear window switches, I never actually got them off the "delicate" way. Try using a pair of pliers and rip em right off the board. This method, make sure you have very LITTLE solder instead of a big glob so taht it doesn't rip off any wires that are attached. If that doesn't work, use a mini flathead screwdriver, the ones that you can buy at a 99 cent store that comes with 6 small screwdrivers(good investment) and scrape it off. Point at a direction where there should be no circuits that you may fork up incase you slip. G'luck. If it still doesn't work, I can probably help you personally since you're in the city.

 

thanks man, ill try that..

 

dammit, this aint working, i broke the top of the led, on the rear window switches....and i cant get a grip wit the pliers, i can put one big glob of solder on one entire side of the led?, then heat it the glob up and lift that side of the led up? will this work or will it screw something up?

 

You are just gonna have to scrape it off now. This is what happened to mine. I think I used a combination of tweezers/fingernail clippers to 'shave' it off.

drew