MOTM

Larry,
> ----
> I am intentionally over caution when soldering chips
> directly to the PCB.  Maybe more than I need to be.  I
> have never fail one soldering it in (well we won't mention
> that time I stupidly soldered them in backwards).

I've not known an IC that I've soldered to fail (but this is with 6 mo.
since my first kit assembly - not much time), but I'm still concerned
from the point of view that I may have damaged it slightly and it does not
immediately fail, but will in the future.

> But, I always solder the two corner pins and let the chip
> cool wheil I go to 2 corner pins as I insert the next chip until 
> I have them ALL on the PCB.  Then I go back and solder two
> more pins on each one, rotating through so each chip gets 
> some "heat rest" as I make my rounds.  I do this until I have all 
> pins soldered.
> 
This is nice to know since this is the approach that I have also taken
except that I solder one pin on each IC in the sequence of IC's.  In my
semi-paranoid state I also make sure that the IC is not 'hot' before I
solder each one.  Maybe overly cautious, but I suppose it is 'peace of
mind' I'm after.  The best instruction in Paul's kit instructions is the
one that assembling is not a time race, but a matter of quality (or
something like that).  May be I overdo it, but that phrase is always in
the back of my mind when I am assembling.

Interesting and useful topic today!
Jeff