[Coco] RGB2VGA Adapter Progress? - Update Please

[Steven Hirsch]

On Thu, 11 Jun 2015, Chris Osborn wrote:

>
> On Jun 11, 2015, at 8:42 AM, Steven Hirsch <snhirsch at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Kip, you may find it simpler to pull (or break) off the plastic carrier 
>> on the existing male headers and yank them one at a time
>
> Not in comparison to a desoldering gun. With a desoldering gun that job 
> will take only a few minutes and the components will just drop out and 
> will not even appear to ever have been used. I have a Hakko 808 vacuum 
> desoldering gun and I use it all the time to take out 40 pin ICs, 
> completely undamaged. In fact when I recently did a Google Hangout where 
> I assembled the MCX-128 board, I accidentally stuck the 40 pin edge 
> connector on the wrong side of the board. Everyone laughed at me, but 
> within just a couple of minutes I had the connector removed and 
> resoldered back on the correct side of the board.

Well, maybe it's just my luck, but I own two vacuum desoldering tools (one 
Circuit Specialists "BlackJack" pistol-grip w/ vacuum pump and one 
Velleman spring-loaded) and have removed a lot of multi-pin connectors, 
chips and chip sockets over the years.  I find that the vacuum units get 
99.5% of the solder clear on the average double-sided PCB.  That last 0.5% 
that hangs up is what rips traces.  Sometimes you see and feel it before 
yanking and sometimes not.

When you get to boards with internal power and ground planes, just forget 
using a vacuum rig.  They have neither the heat-capacity or suction to 
clear the leads.  I suspect a controlled thermal bath from the far side 
would help matters, but I have to draw the line somewhere on bench tools.

The Hakko may actually work reliably in situations where my Solda-pult 
style unit and BlackJack stations have failed, but my experiences have 
soured me on spending more hard-earned money in that direction.

As always, YMMV and probably does.


--