Getting bent (ON topic if not thread) - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

13 Mar 1998

<And in my experience, IC's are not that easy to damage by overheating. 
<I've soldered and desoldered hundreds of chips and never once overheated
<one. Yes I do use a temperature controlled iron, etc. 

FYI in the old days when people would salvage chips of old unmarked cards
a popular way to remove them was a propane torch and pliers!  Obviously
the board would get toasted but you could get the chips off fairly clean 
and fast.  Though once I seriously over did it on the heat.  The result 
is a old 7400 that is bent some in the middle...it still worked!

I also made copper heads with the right shape for round, 16pin and even 
40pin footprints that I would use a ungar element to heat and desolder
chips cleanly from the board.  I've also lifted chips by passing the 
board through the wave solder machine that put them down to start with.

No majik, just carefull application of heat.  The trick is heating all of 
the pins or finding a way that doesn't require all of them to be heated
at once.

Allison