Date   : Sat, 01 Apr 2006 05:00:25 +0100
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Now Roms including Was Exile now off topic

Jon Ripley wrote:
> Colin wrote:
>> Having brutally heaved out a couple of ROMs from my BBC  B, I seem to 
>> have
>> snapped off a leg or two  (not my own legs, I hasten to add). I am sure
>> there must have been a tool to remove them but, being ham-fisted, they 
>> came
>> out at an angle.
>  >
>> Is there a way to repair them (I only have basic kit - a soldering iron,
>> flux and solder) and no electronic testing tools. I am hoping there 
>> may be a
>> set routine for this.
> 
> There is some good advice here:
> http://www.digitpress.com/the_digs/vic20/texts/bentpins.txt

"If both the upper and lower leg halves are gone, sorry, you need to buy
yourself a new chip." isn't actually true - at least for plastic-packaged 
chips. With a decent scalpel you can chisel away enough of the plastic to 
reveal enough metal to solder a new leg on to if you have a soldering iron 
with a *really* fine tip.

It's only worth it for chips that are very hard to source replacements for, 
but it is possible (the colour encoder IC in oe of my Dragon machines is like 
this). The solder joint at the break won't be very strong, so solder the whole 
chip into a donor IC socket and then add the repair to that.

Even with the case where it's just the thin part of the IC leg that's snapped, 
it's still worth using a spare IC socket to form the basis of a strong repair 
so that the chip (complete with socket) can be easily removed without damage 
from any original IC socket in the future.

If you've got a broken bit of IC leg stuck in a socket, a couple of scalpels 
and/or watchmaker's screwdrivers should be able to tease it out.

cheers

Jules