LCM has successfully restored and is running multiple large vintage systems. Not easy, but doable. Lee C. On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 7:55 AM Jim Manley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: -- Lee Courtney +1-650-704-3934 cell

http://vcfed.org/wp/contribute/ :)

On Sat, Nov 10, 2018 at 8:55 AM Jim Manley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Actually that's just as easy as the discrete transistors. You just need a vacuum desoldering station. I use a Hakko 472D-01, which is great, but unfortunately discontinued. Hakko's replacement, the FR410-03, is even better, but unfortunately is twice as expensive (around $950). Some people are satisfied with the handheld vacuum desoldering irons, like the Hakko 808 (now replaced by Hakko FR-301). They're OK for some small jobs, but the handpiece is bulky and heavy, so it's difficult if you have a lot of desoldering to do, or the density is high so you need careful positioning. The pencil-style handpiece of the 472D-01 or FR410-03 is smaller and much lighter. There are cheap no-name Chinese desoldering stations to be found online. I haven't tried them, but I've generally been dissatisfied with Chinese no-name soldering stations. if you can find one not already Actually that's ideal, because parting out a non-working board isn't destroying anything useful, and a vacuum desoldering station allows the ICs to be removed without damaging them. However, for rare parts it's more common to not have any other board with that part, working or otherwise.

plus one for the hakko 808. Love it! Never leave home without it! ________________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Ethan via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, November 12, 2018 9:34 AM To: Eric Smith; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: VAX 9440 I love my 808. Have used it heavily to re-cap arcade monitor chassis (15+) and all kinds of other circuit boards. Of course it doesn't work well when the component lead is super tight to the plate through hole, but that is an issue for wick as well. Friend swears by Pace stations. Recently picked up some Chinese soldering tweezers to aid in SMD capcitor replacement. So far not in love with them. Of course, all the SMD caps I want to remove have leaked electrolyte and the solder doesn't melt right. Hot air setup is the next thing.

On the topic of desoldering tweezers: I don't like them. I've done tons of rework of components down to 0201 size. I consider 0201 to be difficult, but I found that once I could work on 0201 components at all, 0402 suddenly seemed easy to work with! Anyway, the tweezers I've used had poor tip alignment, tips too blunt for small components, and of course the whole handle has to be positioned in a plane such that both tips touch their corresponding terminals at the same time. And that was with high-end Metcal tweezers. Instead, I use two pencil-type irons, one in each hand, working under a stereo microscope. The tips are much better, and manipulating each tip independently provides great control of what's going on. Only drawback is that if you want to use a fancy, expensive iron, now you get to buy two of them. If you're tempted by a soldering station with two or more outputs, make sure that it can drive both simultaneously. There are dual-output stations that have two outputs but can only run one at a time, as well as ones which can drive two irons at once. -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net> http://www.nf6x.net/

All this yammering about fancy desoldering gizmos harkens back memories of a "desoldering station" consisting of a hot soldering iron ... made of a hefty amount of copper (the kind you put in a pit of fire to heat up!) and a long, skinny screwdriver, or two, used to _very_ gently pry up ICs from each end while you ran the iron along the pins, loosening the IC a bit at a time until it popped loose. Clearing the pin holes of solder involved blowing through them as you heated up the pads ... with your breath, hopefully before the pads debonded from the PC board! There's no skill involved any more with the fancy-schmancy stuff ... That also harkens back to my days in the Navy when I would go visit the local Defense Reutilization and Marketing Office (DRMO), previously just called "The Dump". That's where all sorts of DoD-owned military and commercial grade equipment was sent as soon as the new models came along that the Air Force always got first (it helps when you don't have to drive your runways full of aircraft and fuel all over the world, like we do in the Navy!). Most of the Navy stuff showed up when ships got decommissioned ... a typical ship can stay in service for four or five decades, soooo ... anyone need any vacuum tubes, or a mechanical fire-control computer??? Do you know why the Air Force always builds the Officers Club first, and the runways last, on a new base? Congress will _always_ approve more money to finish a runway on a typically horribly-underbid DoD contract (that their brothers-in-law always seem to be involved with)! Anyway, as I was perusing the offerings, I wandered around a corner and there was a guy sitting over what can only be described as a medieval blacksmith's furnace. He was recovering the gold and other precious metals metals as they dribbled out of the cracking, charring non-metals! He appeared to be positioning the materials over time to achieve various melting temperatures, which allowed him to pretty accurately collect each metal in sequence as the materials heated up. I can only wonder whether he wound up with a medical retirement, as I don't recall him wearing any kind of respirator, and it was being done in a large warehouse structure. Come to think of it, I'm surprised _I_ didn't wind up with a medical retirement, given the amount of time I spent in those places finding all sorts of great stuff! Speaking of inheriting Air Force hand-me-downs, a little-known factoid is that Admiral Grace Hopper (co-author of COBOL and an operator of the Harvard Mark IV) used to send her enlisted people around the Pentagon in the evenings to snag things left in the halls by Air Force offices to be carted off by the janitors. That included all of the furniture in her basement-level office and even the American Flag there (complete with heavy stand and oak pole with an eagle atop it). Few able-bodied military men escorted by armed guards ever wandered around in the basement of the Pentagon because of the dank, poorly lit (if at all) corridors, let alone a woman. However, Admiral Hopper wasn't just any woman, and there are rumors that the ne'er-do-wells scattered like cockroaches when they heard her coming (and that was easy to do, as she was always instructing someone about something very useful in conversations). I still have a Nanosecond piece of ~11.2-inch insulated 22-gauge solid wire that she handed out at her presentations - it's even signed, which means it has little marks that correspond to where her signature crossed its horizontal midpoint! She originally used them to explain to MBA-degreed flag officers why there was a noticeable delay between the then-new geosynchronous communications satellites located about 22,300 miles in altitude over the Equator, and satellite ground stations. She would show them a Nanosecond wire (the distance it would take for an electromagnetic wave to travel at the speed of light in one nanosecond) and then move it along an imaginary line-of-sight from a ground station to a satellite and start counting, "One nanosecond ... two nanoseconds ... three nanoseconds ... " until the audience members all exhibited the "Ah-HA!" moment on their faces. Then, she would repeat it along another path between the satellite and another ground station. Ain't computing history great??? All the Best, Jim

Another Hakko 472D owner here. Got mine in pieces as used/nonworking. They're easy to rebuild. I've used the 808s at workshops/friends' places, there's no comparison IMO. I use the "pencil" style handpiece, we had the "gun" style at a previous job, I definitely like the "pencil" style better. Thanks, Jonathan On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 6:38 PM Ed C. via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:

Al Kossow wrote: The newer Pace desoldering tools (SX-90, SX-100) are much better, both in cleaning (disposable traps) and usage (the tips simply don't block at all). Bill S. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

I'm told that we got * everything *. Yes.

Right now I'm just happy no * people * broke when it was delivered! Unloading it from two 28-foot trailers required five people, two pallet jacks, and a forklift.