How would I desolder these switches?

Yiğit Atalan

if you have copper wire (little bit thick) bend like "U" and hold with tweezers and heat with soldering iron and add little bit of solder paste

Dustin Watts

Technically you wouldn't even have to desolder the button to use with a with a relay. Just find the pin that goes to the input of the chip on the board (e.g. pin you want to switch) and ground, and solder to those pad. You can leave the button on.

Rebecca Afzal

If you are going to destroy the buttons (using a heat gun) anyway, I would just use an Xacto knife to cut the pins of the buttons right at the plastic housing. Then just use a soldering iron to remove the left over metal from the pads. This is the safest way to not damage any other components on your board.

Bobby Iridium

One method that may be useful is to heat two leads/pads on one side of the switch enough to get a blade under the switch body. Then apply gentle controlled pressure to tilt the switch so the 2 leads lift away from the pads; insert the blade a little more to maintain the lifted position. Now you may use desoldering wick to remove the solder from the 2 lifted leads. Then move your efforts to the 2 remaining leads.

Hugo Hu

You could use hot air, destorying your button, you could use solder wick and a solderin iron(chisel or pointy), or you could connect wires to those pins to see if it works.

Alex C

Just wanted to chime in to all the great advice to note that removing buttons like these intact without using hot air is nearly impossible, without mangling the button contacts at least a little bit. Attempting to shield the other components from heat with Kapton tape or a different heat resistant tape may be helpful to prevent accidentally melting or removing other parts. Just be careful when removing said tape to make sure that the parts are still attached to the board, and stick the tape to the bare PCB surface, not just to the other components. I've found the best way to remove a surface mount button like this without using hot air should you not have a hot air gun handy and have hope to be able to reuse the buttons, is by using the soldering iron to gently bend the contacts on the buttons away from the pads, this does have the danger of lifting off the pads from the PCB at which point you're in trouble, but if done right you can bend the pins back to their original position to reuse the button if desired. Make sure to be careful around the other components with the hot air or soldering iron, and only apply pressure to the button pins not to the PCB board.

DAVIDE

after testing with mounting wires to the existing pins without desoldering the buttons, use hot air desoldering if smd, or trying with some tin on the pins and fast turn repeated several times with the soldering iron on all pins making a little controlled traction on the switch body if hot air not available. alternately, more invasive destructive component solution (sometimes extreme way on IC..) both THT or smd, cut the pins close to switch body with thin tips wire cutter. It is useful to attach image board and switches to better understand how to proceed without risking to ruin the pcb

Bobby Iridium

I tend to agree with mounting wires to the existing pins; this will allow you to test your modification without desoldering the original button. Depending on your experience, you may not be able to remove the button without damaging the original part. Once you test your changes & are confident that they work, you can remove the original button without worrying about damaging the button.

Remy

Are we missing a picture? As far as removal, sounds like you have a surface mount part. Myself, I'd go for side cutters, which avoids applying the heat to the remote. If you insist on soldering, then much like Gorge said, hot air is the way to go. Get tweezers, start pulling on the component, heat things up with air and the switches should come off. Make sure nothing melty or heat-sensitive gets too warm.

Gorge

I would use carefully with a hot air station. But unless they are faulty in a closed position, leave them be and solder wires to them. Or leave the control alone and replicate the signal it generates.