Removing LEDs from boards

[coolwaters]

i got a heat gun and was wonder wats the safest way to remove the LED from the star board?

oh also its one of thos cree LEDs so popping it out with a knife is next to impossible.

 

[Fallingwater]

Speaking from the comfortable position of someone who's never had to do this, couldn't you suck the solder off with one of those desoldering pumps and then remove the LED with tweezers?

 

[WadeF]

I am no expert, and I got to the point with a mod where I just went for it and removed a Cree R2 from it's star and put it on another star. Didn't know what my chances of success were, but I used similar techniques that I read about, kinda.

I have a small butane torch. I clamped that into my vice (gently) so the flame would go straight up. I used some small pliers to hold the star, and other pliers (fine needle nose) to grab the emitter. I put the base of the star over the flame (not directly, just close enough to start heating it up).

Eventually the solder melted and I remove the LED from the board. That was the easy part.

I applied very small dabs of solder flux to the underside of the emitter on the contacts, and there was already a little bit of solder on the LED contacts from it's previous bond. I carefully lined up the LED on the new star and applied heat and watch for the flux to bubble and for the LED to sink and lay flat on the board. I removed it from the heat, let it cool.

It worked!

Not sure if I ever put the LED in harms way with too much heat, but it seems fine from what I did.

I know I've seen better instructions on how to do this elsewhere on CPF.

 

[Khaytsus]

Unless really intent on saving said component, when I did repair of SMC boards we just basically would snip the components, remove the legs one by one, clean up the pads completely dry, put the new part in place, tack down opposing legs, then solder the rest one by one.

A Cree takes a lot of watts out of an iron, so don't use a cheap one that will cool off really easy. And don't use a 45W monster that'll overheat things.

This all said, I have yet to try to modify any Luxeon/Cree/etc lights.