Features:

  • Removes up to four times more solder than conventional wick, and extracts solder much faster than wicks based on Type-R fluxes
  • Residue left behind is halide free and non-conductive, so it does not have to be cleaned off the board
  • 100% copper wick has fine braid design to promote strong capillary action to pull in excess solder
  • Available with standard or anti-static bobbins
Very helpful for projects and refurbishments, especially for new hands at soldering

This is very useful, particularly if you are new to soldering. Here's how it works: let's say you soldered a connection, but it's a ugly job, kind of lumpy and far too big for what you need. If you just have a soldering iron, you can still remelt the solder, but the best you can do is prod it around and hope to knock the excess off the connection, hoping it doesn't land on anything sensitive. Not ideal. However, the solder wick is basically a narrow ribbon of braided fine copper wire. It comes on a small spool. What you do is you heat up the solder that you want to remove until it is melted, then you touch it with the end of the ribbon. Alternately, you can hold the ribbon against the soldered contacts and press down with the soldering iron, which has the same effect and is useful for desoldering chips from a board. The solder is "wicked" up the copper ribbon, filling in the spaces between the copper wires, leaving the connection basically bare. It works surprisingly well, especially if you've never used it before. Once the copper wick is saturated, you clip off the end and start over. This particular solder wick is fine to start with, very easy to use and low enough in price that you can practice without to much risk. If you aren't using it already, I would recommend trying it, as it basically serves as a real-world "undo" function, allowing for much cleaner finished work.

It really works

I used to use a vacuum solder sucker when resoldering. It worked OK, but not always. This wick works way better... I just put it on the cold solder joint and heat up the wick with the solder iron. It sucks up just about all of the solder in the joint. 10 feet of it should last a long time, as I don't resolder very often.

Neat and Clean

This product works well. It soaks up solder leaving a very thin layer over the circuit board. The packaging is also neat. The roll is protected from air thus preventing oxidation of the copper used in the braid. Recommended. Just remember, if the solder to be removed is less, then keep the copper braid on the solder and press on tightly with the hot soldering iron. It will soak everything up. Remove the braid as soon as you remove the soldering iron to prevent the braid from sticking to the circuit board.

A Basic and Effective soldering wick

This soldering wick cannot be more simple or effective. With the additional time on my hands and binging on YouTube videos WAY more than I ever did, the electrical engineering and the ‘do it yourself’ channels, I was inspired by them and bought myself the basic tools for soldering. For whatever reason, none of the brick-and-mortar stores had desoldering wick and that led me to buy it off of Amazon. The NTE Solder wick is a small 1/8th/3mm wide and 10ft. long copper braid that soaks up melted solder. Intended for smaller desoldering projects and working in small areas. Imitating what I saw on YouTube, it does work in removing unusually think solder points compounded by performing it in the recessed area it was in. I guess there is not more to it than that - I saved a busted LED desk lamp from going to the dump by replacing a damaged LED chip and gained invaluable experience properly desoldering something.

Very good for small components

I had few wicks to compare and i must say i am impressed. Wick is impregnated, that allows solder to flow into the wick. Strands are very thin, that means it will work great for small components, BUT the width of the wick is counter intuitive to strands thickness. Its too wide for small components, but if you manage to get it in there, it will suck everything out no questions asked. I like it. Will not order anything else now that i found something that cost less and works great.

Way better than the cheap stuff

I am guess because of the tighter weave possibly some coating inside, this works way better than the cheap stuff that you get here and there. Yes it cost more, but it actually works. I was removing through hole headers. Previously I using cheap wick to get the bulk of the solder off, crushing the header and then pulling the pins out one by one. THEN sucking out the remaining solder out of the through holes. They had to perfectly clean so I could insert new headers. This NTE stuff sucked all of the solder out on the first step. Just jammed it up against the pin and stuck a big ol chisel tip in there and it sucked out so much solder, the pin fell out on it's own. For subsequent boards, I didn't have to spend the time to crush the header. I just sucked out all of the solder from each pin and pulled the header out. I am pretty sure I could have re-used the header since it came out so cleanly. Saved me a lot of time and headache. If you get frustrated with de-soldering and don't have this wick, buy it.

Works as you'd expect it to

I put off buying a solder wick for a few years thinking that my solder sucker would be enough. I finally got tired of the mess that the solder sucker made and broke down and bought this. I'm glad I did. It's easy to use and works perfectly to get rid of unwanted solder in hard to reach places. I've seen videos of people desoldering surface mount ICs with one of these, so I know it can accomplish what I need it to.

Takes up solder well

Worked really well to clean up old connections. I started by heating the solder until it melted. Then I placed the wick on the solder and heated the top side of the wick. Solder would then be pulled into the wick toward the soldering iron. The wick gets hot so I found it works best to cut off a 2 inch piece and use each side while holding the other.

Great product and value

This wick works just like it should, if you use it like you should. I have seen other novices (I will be an electronics novice - I like to think journeyman - until I die) use the tip to try to wick up solder but these really work nice when you use the tip of the iron to push into the area - heating both up and picking up solder like a sponge - clipping off bits as you use it up. Hope this helps.

An Important Tool for Solder Removal.

This braided copper works well at wicking up molten solder from circuit boards for removing components. It's only half (not counting the heating device) of your solder removing tools however. Wicking works well on flat wide surfaces, but I suggest you also look at vacuum pens. Sometimes you have to suck the molten solder from a relatively deep hole in the board to loosen the component. This roll of braided wick did its job just fine for me. The plastic dispenser it comes in, makes a good holder for the braid so your fingers don't get burned during a long session.

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