Re: Pokey chip extraction

I wrecked one BB cart trying to desolder it pin by pin. I gave up and
commandeered the rework station.

You would secure the board in a set of clamps, then hit a button and a
stream of molten solder would shoot up from a nozzle. It made quick work
of all my carts and it didn't wreck the boards. It wasn't cheap though -
probably a couple grand. It was great for redoing sockets on Galagas too.

Now I use a Black & Decker heat gun to strip chips. You will probably
have to unfold the chip legs with a pencil iron so the POKEY will fall
out as soon as the solder melts. Otherwise you have to clamp the tiny
board down and pry out the chip while you're melting the solder. Wear
safety glasses as those solder boogers fly everywhere.

When I want to save the chip *and* the board, I'll heat up the pin from
the component side, put a sucker on the solder side and fire. I often get
a clean pin & hole on the first shot. A *sturdy* PCB holder makes this
*much* easier.

Once I get my Hakko DS gun going, I can report on that.

Herbach & Rademan has some DS gun for $100 but I don't think it is temp
controlled - ugh.

Virtu-Al

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Received on Wed Oct 13 00:02:44 1999