At some point you may find your bag/box/tote get full, or you just want to build up a supply of spare parts. You can take your old or broken devices out one at a time, strip them down to just electronics and recycle the stuff you dont need (like metal cases and stuff can be recycled, or you can even use them to house new projects)

Some things will have complete assemblies that are useful, like power supplies, or displays, but there will also be circuit boards that you have no use for, but are full of sweet juicy parts that you can use for other things. Since these boards are not of any real value other than scrap parts, they can also be used for educational purposes, like learning or showing others how to solder, or do repairs.



To harvest the sweet sweet juicy parts you will need some tools. and you may want some safety gear, like safety glasses, or a fan with filter to remove fumes. I usually just take things outside if they are going to be fuming. I dont normally wear safety glasses for soldering, but I do for harvesting parts, just to be extra cautious.



The tools you will need are soldering iron, clippers, screwdriver, pry/wedge tools, tweezers, pliers. A guitar pick works great for opening stap together parts, just jamb it in the crack, and run it around the device to pop it open. A popsicle stick works good for making a wedge or pry tool, a lolipop/sucker stick works great as a burnishing tool, and you can sharpen it to use to poke and scrape out stuff without damaging things. Its real handy for cleaning dirty connectors.

Some tools you will have to buy, but everyday household items can be very handy too. I use an old tuna can to put solvent in for cleaning small electronics. An old jelly jar (with lid) makes a great container for soaking stuff in alcohol to clean off flux. I build LED cubes, and I can take the spires, put them in the jar over night, and they clean up real quick and easy the next day.



You can also use cardboard and plastic from your recycling to make containers to organize your new parts after harvesting.

When I buy stuff, it often comes in bags or boxes, and I keep those around (often in a bag or box, yes, I have bags of bags, and boxes of boxes), and they come in real handy for putting things like electronic parts.



Getting on to the parts extraction will usually require heat, whether its a soldering iron, de-soldering station, or hot air tool. Most folks wont have proper de-soldering gear, but thats ok, you can get by without it most of the time, although good gear makes things a lot easier.

Sometimes de-soldering is too difficult, but you can cut the part free, either by cutting the parts leads, or chopping the circuit board up with pliers, saws, or grinding disks.

I usually start with by removing the biggest parts, then move down to smallest parts, just like the opposite of assembly (assembly you usually start with the shortest,smallest parts then move to the bigger ones).



Circuit boards with through hole components are usually easiest to take off with a soldering iron, having 2 irons can really speed things up by getting both side of the part hot at the same time, but you can also do it with one iron.

I usually add solder to help remove parts, it may sound counter productive, but it really helps to put a blob of solder on your iron, then add a bit more to the part to get the thing hot quickly. Then when its hot, you can use gravity, tweezers or a pry/wedge tool to remove it. If you have an iron with a really big tip, lots of thermal mass, you may not need extra solder, but it usually helps.

Sometimes you have parts that will get melted if you use an iron to de-solder, with those, sometimes you can use hot air on the back side of the board, so you are not heating the part so much, then let gravity pull the part after you heat the solder..

ICs can be a bit difficult to get out, but they too will come out, if you know some tricks. One trick that I like a lot is to put a bunch of solder on one side of the IC, and while heating up all the leads on that side, I pry one side up with a screwdriver or pry tool. Let that cool, then work the other side in the same way. You dont have to get the lead on one side completely out in one pass, you can do it in a couple passes. When I get the part out, I often save that excess solder for removing other parts. just splash it on a mat or bench, and re-use it on the next part.



A neat trick I learned but can be a bit destructive if you arent careful, is to solder a wire to a pin on one end of the IC, then run that wire under the IC, and heat up the first lead on the far side from the pin that is soldered to the wire, and pull the wire when the solder melts on the first lead. It pulls the lead out, and you keep heating your way down the chip pulling one lead at a time until you get to the end. This trick will work on SMT or through hole parts, it does bend the leads, and it can rip a trace or pad, so you need to be careful using this trick if you need to keep the PCB.



You can clip parts out, and thats a good technique of you need to save the PCB, it will mean that the part probably wont be easy to solder into something else, but maybe you dont mind doing some extra soldering, if it means you get the part out quickly and easily.



Sometimes using 2 irons on ICs works best. It usually takes some time to get all the leads hot, I always throw some extra solder on it to help, and you gotta keep them irons moving to keep the whole thing hot enough to pull out.

You can also use solder braid or solder sucker to remove the solder. There will always be a little bit of solder that holds the part in, but you can use tweezers or other tools to break the tiny solder connection on each lead, then put the part out. I find it kind of tedious and frustrating, but sometimes its the best option.

Its good to use this as practice for doing repairs, because sometimes you need to remove a part, but dont want to damage the PCB or other parts nearby.

When using solder braid (aka solder wick), please be careful with the solder wick, its real easy to pull up traces or pads by pulling on the wick while its stuck to the PCB. Be gentile when lifting the wick from the board. You should also be careful not to press too hard on the PCB with the soldering iron, that too can make traces or pads lift right off and cause you more trouble. Using old boards to practice on is a good idea.

Solder suckers are also something to be careful with, Most people damage the PCB by hitting the plunger button while the iron is on the board. It always leaves a dent in the board, and can sometimes lead to a lifted pad. the easy way to never have that problem is to make sure you lift your iron (even just 1/8" is enough) before you hit that sucker button. Ive used them in production, but I dont have one at home, and Ive found that I prefer a different way.



Ive found that I can just tap the solder out of the hole after heating up the solder. I can do many holes fairly quickly this way, and I dont have to pick up and put down tools, so its just a lot quicker and easier. On a similar note, I also sometime blow (with my mouth) the solder out of the holes, Sometimes tapping the board isnt easy, but blowing is.



Sometimes I use solder wick after I use the tap method, just to clean up small bits that didnt clear out well, or on SMT lands to make it easier to place new parts. I probably use the tap method the most, next is solder braid. Solder braid usually leaves things cleaner, and thats nicer when you go to put new parts down. I also like to use solder braid to clean up salvaged parts before installing them.



There are also other good tools to do solder reworking, Through hole desoldering stations are awesome if you have one, Even a cheapo bulb type solder sucker, or spring loaded solder sucker can help. If I had an electric desoldering gun, I would use it, but not a solder sucker, I just dont like them much.

Solder pots also make quick work of removing through hole parts. You can use cooking equipment (like hot plate or toaster ovens) to reflow solder and extract parts.

There are really nice solder reflow stations in manufacturing that allow you to precisely remove and replace all the different ICs.



For the most part, just using a soldering iron, with excessive amounts of solder work great, if not solder wick usually does it, and if I want to do larger mass items, or remove the parts for a whole board quickly, then I use hot air gun, an inexpensive paint stripper/heat shrink hot air gun works great. But use it in good ventilation,because circuit board give off fumes when heated (fiberglass resin)

When you have extracted all your parts, you will want to go back to your bag of bags or box of bags, and box of boxes and get some suitable bags and boxes for all your new parts. I organize mine by type and size. For instance I would put all the SMT caps in one bag, and through hole caps in another bag. put the through hole diodes in one bag, and the resistors in another one. Alternatively or additionally, you can use other containers like pill bottles or weekly pill cases, or paper envelopes, or even egg crates or other containers from the recycling bin.