RE: Pokey chip extraction

> You would secure the board in a set of clamps, then hit a button and a
> stream of molten solder would shoot up from a nozzle. It made quick work
> of all my carts and it didn't wreck the boards. It wasn't cheap though -
> probably a couple grand. It was great for redoing sockets on Galagas too.
>
I've been lusting after one of these for a while now. APS makes them-- the
"gold wave". It's a selective solder/desolder system. Basically a tiny
wave-solder machine on your desktop. They're about $3K. They also usually
need "tips" to setup the wave how you want it (.6" DIP, .3" DIP, SIP, etc.)
which are expensive.

Seems like you should be able to make one from a big enough solder pot, a
compressed air source, and a lot of stainless-steel tubing. ;-)

I took a hot-air pre-heat table home from work a couple weeks ago (used to
pre-heat BGAs from the bottom of a board) and used it to pre-heat some old
multi-layer through-hole boards then hit them from the top with hot-air from
my Hakko 850. That worked quite well-- parts lift right out. You could
probably do the same thing for <$80 with a hot-plate and a heat-gun from a
hardware store.

-Clay
Received on Wed Oct 13 12:02:46 1999