On Tue, 9 Feb 2016 11:23:24 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
wrote:


Anyone got any tips on how to avoid the unpleasant situation where you
try to de-solder a part on an elderly board and end up removing more than
just component leads? Most of the stuff I work on is at *least* 25 years
old and things start to get fragile.

I used to service scopes and DVMs and other testgear in the service
department of the manufacturer. At the time they did not use surface
mount so any duff IC, transistor, diode etc had all its pins cut on
the top of the board then each pin removed individually (using spring
loaded solder sucker or vacuum device depending if in field or not).