Desoldiering help

[Synnth3t1k]

I had bought the Kitsch-Bent 4 button pcb, trying to salvage wire, I used a 18-20awg wire. Trying to fit the wire in the 1mm holes I had to trim some strands down. Now they cross into other wires.

Now I'm trying to pull them back out without destroying the pcb and soldier keeps the hole closed up, and I'm having a hard time getting another wire into them. My desoldiering pump, and braid isn't doing the trick. Any tips is appreciated.

[1461748123]

Man... 18 or 20 awg is way too thick for this project.
My suggestion will be, hold your boards using a helping hand, and use on hand holding the soldering iron to heat the joint and use the other hand with a pliers to pull the leftover out

[ktechelonbreak]

Are you trying to get the wire out or a new wire in? Sometimes a bit more solder is the key. Heat transfers much more easily through solder than the soldering iron alone. Put a tiny bit more solder onto the hole, you should see it bubble up a bit, it'll be much easier to make contact with the solder that way and melt it.

[Ganreizu]

Man... 18 or 20 awg is way too thick for this project.
My suggestion will be, hold your boards using a helping hand, and use on hand holding the soldering iron to heat the joint and use the other hand with a pliers to pull the leftover out

What thickness of wire do you recommend?

[Helder]

26-30 AWG is good but a nice in between size of 28 AWG is good and you could always use HDD IDE ribbon cable for this as it's thin enough and easy to manage since they're stuck together.

Looks something like this:

[1461748123]

Man... 18 or 20 awg is way too thick for this project.
My suggestion will be, hold your boards using a helping hand, and use on hand holding the soldering iron to heat the joint and use the other hand with a pliers to pull the leftover out

What thickness of wire do you recommend?

I'm mainly using 22 awg because I got bunch on hand, but I think 26 awg will work the best

[Synnth3t1k]

I was able to get the wire out. The problem I was having after that was opening up the hole to put another wire in. What I found that worked was using 22awg kanthal wire (vape wire) and heating it up with my iron and poked it through the solder, the wire also took the excess solder out with it.