Repairing IC pins

[James Rice]

Philip Pemberton wrote:

>Hi folks,
>  Does anyone know of a way to repair IC pins that have been broken off at
>the point where they leave the IC casing? I've got a couple of chips with
>missing pins here and was just wondering if it was possible...
>
>Thanks.
>  
>
I've done it on BIOS chips once or twice.  I began by carefully scraping 
the case material away at the seam of the IC until a small bit of chip 
lead was exposed.  After that I placed the chip into a scrap socket and 
carefully soldered a donated pin from another chip to the exposed stub.  
These were plastic encased chips.   I never tried it with a ceramic 
package. I suppose you could take a very small diamond burr and a dremel 
to grind a bit of the package material away but it probably wouldn't be 
an easy task.  When soldering the pin,  I actually had better luck with 
a higher than normal heat on the iron and a very fine tip installed.  I 
used a Hakko 936 with a new 900M-T1 tip.  Probably not proper technique 
but it worked for me.  That way I seemed to get in and out faster with 
minimal heat transfer into the chip.  YMMV of course.

James

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