Atari 130XE on Hackaday.com

[Dropcheck]

Almost old news now, but I was wasting time on this website the other night and found this.

 

Desoldering Chips on a 130XE board

 

Gives me hope that I might be able to fix an ailing 130XE I have.

[Rybags]

*headdesk - he calls it a 130EX !

 

*headdesk #2 - they're rescuing MT Ram chips... PMSL !

OK, obviously the video is for illustrative purposes.

 

Have to wonder though, how do the flaky traces cope with the heat? Got to say though it's a fast process.

 

For whatever reason though, you just don't seem to hear about the method of heating pins with the iron individually and using a solder sucker. I did about a dozen Pokeys off 7800 carts that way, and other DIPs as well, practically all rescued and reusable.

The other thing is it's a whole bunch cheaper than having to buy a hot air station.

[flashjazzcat]

I hoped it would be that quick with a hot air station, but I'd also be a little worried about traces on the crappier boards. The solder pump method is very slow but safe.

[Rybags]

Yep, at best you do a pin in about 10 seconds with soldering iron. Then you have extra time if it's a pin with fat power or Gnd trace. Then more time every few pins pulling the pump apart to get the bits of solder out, and once in a while cleaning and retinning the iron tip.

[+DrVenkman]

If I ever get a free weekend, I'm going to be desoldering a bad RIOT from a Vader 2600 board. What temperature do you guys recommend from removing old solder? I am going to try like hell to not damage the through holes but with 40 individual pins there's a lot of opportunity for me to screw something up.

[Rybags]

I think I managed it at 225 Deg C but probably better at 250-275.

 

The operative thing is to use a fine tip if possible and don't let it touch the board. The fine tip has the right taper so you can have that last 5mm in contact with just one pin, solder pump at the ready on the other side.

About 10-15 seconds is usually enough. Sometimes you'll get the solder with one suck, other times it'll take 2 or more.

The other thing I do is leave the corner pins till last, and move around with the remainder such that you're not generating a lot of heat in one place for a long time.

e.g. if you have a chip where the pins are 1-20 on bottom, 21-40 on top you might do 2, 19, 39, 22, 3, 18, 38 etc.

 

Sometimes the Vss/Vcc pins will have fatter traces which pull the heat away and make it hard to melt the solder. In such cases leave for last and simply heat the pin and lever the chip out at the same time then cleanup afterwards.

Edited March 1, 2016 by Rybags

[Marius]

I have a heated desolder pump. Works like a charm and it's pretty fast too.

[random_rodder]

I used that hot air method once removing a 6809 from a CoCo 3 board. It might work better on a lower pin count chip, but, on that CoCo 3 board, I warped the phenolic. The board still works to this day, but, it scared me sufficiently that I've been using a solder sucker ever since. And with safer results.

[Joey Z]

I think on any of the shittier atari boards, you're probably better off with a desoldering gun as far as not burning/damaging the board

[+tf_hh]

Hmm, I also think it´s better to use a desoldering iron with vacuum pump. The guy who show it in the video is MUCH experienced with this way of desoldering and the hot air machine has much power (high flow) as you can hear it.

 

Normal (<100 bucks) hot air machines are much slowlier and you´ve to heat up over 300 degree celsius to make it work - and the high risk of damage the PCB. Sometimes only the solder silk burns and PCB remains to be working, but it looks creep.

 

With a desoldering iron (I use a Xytronic LF-8800) you´re able to desolder one DRAM IC in approx. 20 seconds with some exercise. And this is much more safer IMHO.

 

Jurgen

[Panther]

I use a Hakko 808 desoldering gun and it's worked very well for me. Very little contact time is required (though I'm probably a touch slower than Jurgen).

Edited March 1, 2016 by Panther