SBC6120 (a build-it-yourself PDP-8 clone) Last Buy and End ofLife

Agreed, and even on the "normal" stuff, you still hit pins soldered into large planes etc., so you have to have to be careful. Even so, a very large percentage of the material that I work on responds well to the desoldering station ... It's one of those tools that you can get by with without most of the time, but when you need it it really comes in handy. Quite often I am removing hard-to-find components from junk boards in order to repair a different piece of equipment, and the station leaves both in better shape than my previous method which involved a torch. And no (a response to another post), I didn't say it was THE best investment I have made in my workbench - just one of the best ones. I would put a good fine-tip soldering iron, good storage scope, good mutimeter ahead of it ... After all I went years without it, but I rank it quite "up there" with the other staples now... Dave -- dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html