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Massive pain to remove an IC?

T

TrevorBarten

Well-Known Member
So I don't really know where to post this but I bought a hp oscilloscope and it needed a new battery for the memory chip. I ordered a new chip and figured I'd remove the chip before the new one arrived. I kid you not I must have spent 2 hours just trying to get the thing out. I was fairly confident in my soldering ability before this but damn. I tried hot air at first but that went nowhere. After that I tried with a soldering iron, thin tip and both solder wick and a sucker but I just could not get the solder removed. I know that a soldering gun would be the ultimate solution and I actually have one of those that I still need parts for, but disregarding that option for now is there someone here that cab maybe give me some tips on how to better do this? For reference I tried hot air at around 300-400 c⁰ which might be too hot and I tried my iron at basically only 400-450. I also tried it with a thicker tip and a different iron but it didn't help much. The only thing that helped was cutting the legs short so I could better reach the tin with the wick.
 
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Flux can be an aid to the process. I have always felt that the more you heat solder, the harder it becomes. I think this process is, in a way, like tempering steel.
 
KingBubba said:
Flux can be an aid to the process. I have always felt that the more you heat solder, the harder it becomes. I think this process is, in a way, like tempering steel.
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I've not found that to be the case.

OP, I would try a much hotter iron....600-700/750F, with a a very fine chisel tip (since you are using braid).
 
Very quickly.. Is this " chip " and SMD package ? If so.. Have you any experience with SMD soldering ? Definitely need some good liquid flux.
 
Through hole can be removed by using a solder sucker or braid, but you must soak the braid with flux or it won't pull up the solder. Any liquid flux will work. Put in a socket if this is the case

For SMD, hot air at low flow and solder braid will work, or you can gently pry up the chip while heating the solder. Did I mention I hate surface mount repairs?
 
I have found that sometimes thin soldering iron tips can be counter productive, the joint sucking heat out of the (smaller) tip too fast to allow the solder to melt.

If you don't have a surface work heat gun, you can usually lift the legs of an SMD device one-by-one with a craft knife.
 
avionic said:
Very quickly.. Is this " chip " and SMD package ? If so.. Have you any experience with SMD soldering ? Definitely need some good liquid flux.
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It's an older pcb, the chip goes through the board. Resoldering will be very easy but I want to be able to properly do this in the future.
 
avionic said:
Don´t destroy the new chip. Was there anything wrong with the old chip ? Before removal .:biggrin:
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It's a package chip that stores the calibration and has an internal battery. I could have added and external battery to the old chip but overall it was not worth saving. Also technically the chip should still be ok.
 
Depends on how many legs the chip has. The correct way to do it is to heat all the pins at the same time using a large flat bit.
42257667.jpg

https://uk.farnell.com/weller/dil-1...ce=true&CMP=KNC-GUK-GEN-SHOPPING-PMAX-CLM-NCA

If you don't mind destroying the chip you can try cutting the pins, then remove each pin one by one.
 
rothwellaudio said:
Depends on how many legs the chip has. The correct way to do it is to heat all the pins at the same time using a large flat bit.
42257667.jpg

https://uk.farnell.com/weller/dil-1...ce=true&CMP=KNC-GUK-GEN-SHOPPING-PMAX-CLM-NCA

If you don't mind destroying the chip you can try cutting the pins, then remove each pin one by one.
Click to expand...
What I ended up doing was cutting the pins on the other end so that I could better get my wick over the entire pad. This way I got the chip out with minimal damge and technically still reuseable but it still took ages.
 
For times like this, I found "Chip Quick" to be a life saver, it's a low temperature solder and flux to go with it. made for surface mount components, but work great with through the hole parts too. Amazing stuff..
 
Clip the legs off the chip and pull them out individually
You didn't plan to keep it, did you?
 
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