[sdiy] Desoldering techniques for chips that you want to keep?

[Seb Francis]

It's pretty hard.  If you want to be sure not to damage the PCB then you 
are better off sacrificing the IC - cut the pins and desolder individually.

But you can get special soldering iron bit that will desolder up to a 
16pin DIP IC all in 1 go (it sits on all pins at once).  This is the 
best way I can think of.  Maybe with a single sided board you'd be able 
to manage by removing the solder with a solder sucker or desoldering 
braid, but with double sided PTH boards it'll be near enough impossible 
to do this.

Seb


steve jones wrote:

>Newbie stuff.... I've always used chip sockets for my DIY projects so
>far, so this is new to me...
>I'm looking for info on how to desolder and remove chips from a
>circuit board without damaging either. Should I use a solder sucker or
>copper braid? Flux? Soldering iron size / power? Should I add new
>solder to start with? How tough are chips anyway?
>General advice most welcome.
>Steve
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