Re: removing chip from board

[dalloff@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Dave Althoff)]

Dave Ciotti (dciotti@pppl.gov) wrote:
: Both the sucking bulb and the catapullit desolderer can cause more harm
: than good.  They both force movement of a hot trace on a circuit board
: when it is most vulnerable to damage.  That is you apply a soldering
: iron to the trace, heat it to the temperature of the iron then wiggle
: it with the tip of the desoldering tool.  The wiggling action can very
: easily loosen the bond between the metal trace and the plastic board.

: Soldering Wick on the other hand is applied to the trace when it is
: cold and held in place by the iron.  there is much less chance of
: damaging the delicate trace to board bond in this method.

This is true; I have pulled many a trace over the years.  But keep this in
mind--
The original poster wants to remove the 256k soldered into a GS memory
card, to use it to fill the vacant ports on another card.  In other words,
once the chips are removed from the board, the board is useless (unless,
of course, new chips...or better yet, sockets...are soldered in). 
Therefore, FOR THIS APPLICATION, one needs not worry about damaging the
board.  Worry instead about damaging the chip...and in that case, high
temperature is the biggest problem.  Be aware, also that it may be a
double-sided board with solder on both sides.  I stand by my suggestion of
a vacuum tool (bulb, or as another has suggested, Soldapult) for this
application.  Solder wick seems to require higher temperatures on the
component (since it takes longer).

Also, for any soldering work, I highly recommend the various
butane-powered soldering irons (mine is a Portasol).  With the short tip
and the short warm-up time, I don't know how I got along without one. 
Short tip is nice...as soon as I got it I quit burning my fingers...!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
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