[sdiy] mis-soldered IC....

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Harry, Tom 'n' all.

At 12:45 AM 7/4/02 -0400, harry wrote:
>If I were you... I get some old computer board or something... and perfect 
>your
>solder-wick technique.
>
>Also... if I EVER have to unsolder a chip... I use a socket the next 
>time... so
>that
>the board will never get unsoldered again at the same pads.
>
>And I use sockets in the first place....  (AMP Diplomate brand)

Have shares in the company Harry? My dog ate my shares in Microsoft.

Socketing ICs have a disadvantage that they can become dislodged in 
transit. It is also not uncommon for them to just stop working for no 
apparent reason. This is due to expansion and contraction allowing 
contaminants into the interface. Some people swear by machined pin sockets. 
Other's hate them. I'm undecided but a bit of gold plating (Or gold painted 
as we swore was the case with Duck Smut sockets.) never goes astray. A 
solution to the dislodgement problem is simply to use a bit of hot-melt 
glue or a dab or rubber cement between the chip and the socket. DO NOT use 
supa glue! Not if you ever want to repair it.

But socketing in general is a real good idea. If you ever have to repair a 
commercial board it's always a good idea also. Since the boards are often 
pretty bad and take about 1 repair job before the tracks come un-stuck.

There's really no avoiding the expansion/contraction problem unless your 
gear lives in a perfectly stable environment. Like the place in France 
where they keep the official metre measurement or perhaps Lenin's tomb or 
something. Anyway the only thing you can really do about that is make sure 
that the first thing you check when something goes bad is that the ICs are 
all reseated.

A guy I knew use to bathe his Apple ][ MoBo in isopropyl once a year. This 
thing was a total dog for this kinda stuff. Many people replace their PCs 
because they can't figure out what the random fault is. Twice a year here I 
usually have to go round and reseat all the cards. It's just the way it is.

Hope this helps.

Be absolutely Icebox.

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