Desoldering components with bent leads

[kalel]

While trying to repair a broken board (I think this is the first time for me to work on a factory made board or to make a repair of one), I noticed that some capacitors had their leads relatively straight, so the component was easy to take out, but others had their leads bent on the other side, making simple removal difficult.

What I did in those cases was cut the component leads on the side where the component is, thus removing the component, followed by trying to remove the lead (heating up the solder around it and moving it with something until it falls out). It did work, but it took a bit - or lot more time and care than the non-bent ones. Those, for the most part, simply fell out by gravity after using a simple manual desoldering iron (a combination of desoldering pump and soldering iron, really cheap, does a remarkable job).

How do experienced people desolder these parts with bent leads, is there any good advice for removing such components?

[Twoflower]

As usual: It depends on the situation. Sometimes I use the solder Iron to bent it back (some people might now scream but my solder tip isn't very fine and still works very well, even on SMDs). That is used if only one device needs to be replaced. Otherwise the next approach is used.

In case the leads are too far bend that I can't get the solder tip below the leads. So here I use pliers (or for caps just use your fingers) to pull the leads out while heating up the pin. But that can ruin your day on two sided PCBs as there's the risk to damage the pads on the 'device-side' of the PCB. So be careful.

If the device is known bad, sometimes I just cut the leads.

For IC's sometimes a small screw driver or pliers are helpful too: After sucking the solder the pins are usually still slightly fixed to the pad. A small wiggle to each pin solve this. If this is not sufficient try to remove more solder.

But in any case I use pliers to get the device out. Except for bigger devices, here I reasonably often use my fingers.

[David Hess]

If I am doing a lot of desoldering, I might break out my vacuum desoldering gun with the smallest tip which will fit over the leads and use it to straighten the leads.  Otherwise I just use my normal soldering iron to push the lead straight.

[stj]

if it's flat-down against the board,
melt the solder and lift the pin with the edge of a knife.
obviously you need a good iron for that.

[kalel]

if it's flat-down against the board,
melt the solder and lift the pin with the edge of a knife.
obviously you need a good iron for that.

Yes, the specific ones I encountered were flat down against the board, a bit challenging.

[nicalitz]

i usually just try to remove most of the solder using a sucker or wick and then straighten out the pin using the tip of the iron. when im working on high voltage circuits where the parts have thicker leads, i use pliers to pull the lead or press the component from the back while applying heat to the joint to 'lift' the bent leads off the board. dont do this when working with typical low voltage PCBs. pads and traces are much less robust, and will easily lift/tear off the substrate

[David Hess]

if it's flat-down against the board,
melt the solder and lift the pin with the edge of a knife.
obviously you need a good iron for that.

Yes, the specific ones I encountered were flat down against the board, a bit challenging.

That is not very common but I also use a knife in this case.

[kalel]

I didn't think of using a knife, I guess one has to be careful not to scrape some solder mask away.

[nicalitz]

these 'solder manipulating tools' are also quite handy when desoldering

[Raj]

what i do is,use 2$ soldering iron to pry them and straighten them.