Today, I need to isolate a pin from PCB and probe it. The pin is surrounded by ground planes on both sides, it would take years to cut the trace, so I drilled a hole around the pin destructively. Unfortunately, I broke the pin in this process. Not a big deal, simply remove and replace the SATA connector would be good, but here comes the headache.
Despite playing with electronics for years, I never learned to remove connectors from double-sided board with plated through-hole. The usual process of desolder: (1) clean, (2) flux the board, (3) heat it with an iron, (4) add fresh solder to reflow, (5) remove the solder with (a) a desolder wick, (b) a desolder pump, simply doesn't work for me.
My experience is basically: first of all, the solder joints are pretty oxidated. Touching the joint with an iron simply won't have any reaction whatsoever regardless of whether there's any flux, so adding fresh solder is mandatory, all right. However, even after adding solder, usually only the top part of the through-hole would be able to reflow, from time to time, the solder inside the plated hole doesn't get a reflow. Sometimes it's badly oxidated and doesn't conduct heat well, and other times, even if you manage to get a reflow inside, it's still out of reach of a desolder pump, applying a desolder wick / pump would only remove the top part, even worse, a incomplete desolder may push the solder deeper into the PTH or to the other side of the board. An exercise in frustration! For smaller parts like capacitors or 8-pin DIP, usually the part eventually comes out, but for connectors, repeat it a few times, the board would be destroyed.
What is the correct way to remove it?