[Quoting joneeboi]I'm guilty of not owning an opamp removal tool
I've tried a few different tools made for the purpose, and I don't like any of them. They give you too much leverage, or not enough control. It's just too easy to bend pins with them.What I use, and have found amazingly effective, is a simple right-angle pick:
The one I use doesn't quite fit in the trough of the socket under the chip, but the taper is so gentle that a little bit of a push lifts the chip a bit on that side, so right from the start it's lifting the chip. You could immediately move it to the other side, having loosened the one side. You have enough control to pry gently upward on the chip by pulling the handle away from the socket. A gentle move or two on each side, and it's easy to pull the chip out by hand. I've never significantly bent a pin this way.
Especially helpful in this instance is that it's so slim, down away from the handle, that you can get it in almost anywhere. If you can get your fingers in somewhere to put the chip in in the first place, you can get the pick in afterward.
[Quote]I feel like I've said this before, but I'll say it again anyway. I really enjoy that there is the SMT option on account of beginners.
I hadn't really thought about it, but yes, I guess it does give someone an unthreatening intro to the subject. You can always just give up on the SMDs and go thru-hole. The only mandatory SMDs are the buffers. No, even those are optional: you can jumper the buffer easily, by tying one side of R7 to the extra output pad.
[Quote]I really like the layout in this board, tangent. We'll see how it stands up to the test run, but I'm quite certain it will fair very well. I'm excited to see the finished product.
Thanks!Now we wait.
In case someone's curious, while waiting, I'll be back on the YJPS finalization effort. I hope to get it buttoned up before the PIMETA v2 prototypes arrive. I'm not yet sure if I will do another proto run, or go straight to production.
[Edited by tangent on 03-19-2009 at 08:57 PM.]
posted 03-19-2009 08:56 PM CST (US) 
