Bill McKee wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote in message
...

Bill McKee wrote:

For removing surface mount or high density flat packs this is the best
stuff.
http://www.chipquikinc.com/


Not for production work. A good hot air rework station did the job
faster and better.


I removed a lot of SMD ICs with solder wick. Clean most of the solder
off the pins, and use a very small tipped dental pick to see which leads
were loose. Then touch the ones that were, with a hot soldering iron and
lift them before the solder cools. I could pull a 288 pin IC in about a
minute, clean up the pads in about 30 seconds, and solder a new chip in
by hand in, in about 90 seconds without any solder bridges. It took
longer to clean the board than to change a chip.

But there is a large difference between production work and having to change
one IC in a lab or off site.


Obviously. Then again, soldering isn't the only difference. I
built a radio at eight, and soon after my 13th birthday I was working
part time in a TV shop repairing record players and car radios. There
are people who should never be allowed to touch a tool, yet they are.
Some moron will use a cheap chinese iron with an ungrounded tip on a
piece of delicate & expensive equipment, thinking they are a genius.
Then a $20,000 piece of equipment needs $2,000 to $3,000 in repairs,
plus case parts where they don't pack it properly to ship it back to the
factory. Or someone borrows $15,000 worth of equipment, then dumps it
in the ocean from a balloon then doesn't want to pay for the totaled
equipment.


The rework station was about 100 feet from my bench, but I changed
the IC's myself to avoid waiting hours to days to finish a job. Some
people can solder, and others can't. My productivity was more than
twice the average anyone else in the plant because of this. Rework
tried to have my soldering irons taken away, but both M.E. and Q.A.
liked my work.


--
Greed is the root of all eBay.