Date : Thu, 04 Feb 2016 22:36:18 +0000
From : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: Chip extractors - any recommendations?
Blip wrote:
> As part of the OU project I've already talked about, I wonder if
> anyone has any recommendations around what to use for chip extraction?
> I was looking at this one:
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/quality-Integrated-Circuit-Extractor-engineer/dp/B000TGLSVK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454621800&sr=8-1&keywords=chip+extractor+-dust
No no no no! :( You need something where you control the extraction.
With something like that the grip of the socket on the IC pins drops
suddenly, faster than you can react and stop pulling, resulting in
crushed pins. You need a method where as the friction drops to zero the
movement also drops to zero. A lever.
What I use is an old PC expansion slot blanking plate with a bit cut off
so it fits under an IC, this here:
http://pics.mdfs.net/2016/02/160201.htm
It's a L-shaped strip of metal, about three inches long, half an inch
wide, with the foot of the 'L' about 1/4 of an inch long. As you lever
up the IC when the friction drops to zero the IC moves no further than
where you have levered it to. It is impossible for you to lose control.
It's an L-shaped equivalent of putting a screwdriver under the edge of
an IC and rotating the screwdriver. The friction is soley holding the IC
in, it is not controlling the force you are applying.
(rant)
It puzzles me how these things sold as "IC extractors" continue to exist
when they patently do more damage than their purported function and how
people fail to notice that they don't function. I lost count of the
number of destroyed EPROMs my colleagues produced using the "yank and
pray" method.
It's because people see them sold as "IC extractors" so assume that they
function as IC extractors. So, there must be something wrong with how
they use them, it never occurs to them that what is purported to be
reality isn't. Like how people believe you give birth inside a tent
because that's what they see in TV shows and films, rather than that's
what they show in TV shows and films because that's what the regulators
allow to be shown, not what actually happens in reality.
(/rant)
--
J.G.Harston - jgh@... - mdfs.net/jgh