Can I substitute kapton with aluminium foil when de/soldering a component onto a PCB?
I want to desolder a tiny surface mount button from the motherboard of a phone... There are a lot of similarly tiny components surrounding it that I do not want to damage with heat from the soldering iron. Can I use aluminium foil in lieu of kapton tape to protect these components?
If you're doing hand soldering with an iron, you should only be making contact (and potentially warming the surrounding components) for about 3 seconds. Only the point of contact with the tip of your iron should be reaching temperatures of any concern. Assuming the components you're worried about are also soldered in, there should be no issue or need for further precaution. They can clearly take full solder temp for a few seconds so a brief rise in ambient temperature will be nothing.
Aluminum foil is a marginally useful trick for creating a heat shield when doing hot air rework. You still want to keep it off the components you're trying to protect as much as possible. It should only serve to divert the hot air since it still conducts heat.
Kapton tape's virtue is that it doesn't break down under high temp, and it's available in anti-static formulations. It's great for holding things in place as you solder them, or maybe for holding down the aluminum foil as you do your hot air rework. Borderline useless for heat protection by itself though.
If you are using a iron, then just apply it where needed. Other nearby components won't that that hot unless you do something really wierd.
Also, Kapton tape doesn't protect against heat. It keeps things from getting soldered by being a physical barrier to molten solder. The reason Kapton is used instead of other tape is that Kapton can stand high temperatures. It's also useful that solder doesn't wet Kapton.
Aluminium is a good conducter for heat So it is not better for use pcb when we use smd rework station
