I looked into purchasing a hot air rework station as well, but found that for most hobby-type work (which is all I ever do), a Pyro-Pen Junior works very well. It has a "hot air blow" attachment, which heats air with the butane flame and blows hot air out the tip. It works great with some solder paste for soldering SOIC parts, but I haven't tried anything smaller yet. If you go this road be wary of cheaper alternatives, as many of them have a "solder" tip and a "blowtorch" tip, neither which are effective at soldering SMD onto circuit boards. If it doesn't explicitly say "hot air blow" or equivalent, then pass on it for SMD work. I tried using a standard butane pencil when I first heard about this, and it just fried the chip and carrier board. -------------------------------------------- Robert B. email: robertb@nerdulator.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gerhard Fiedler" To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." Sent: Saturday, November 27, 2004 8:20 AM Subject: Re: [PIC] Microchip vs Atmel vs other MCU companies -- was: PIC vsAVR > William ChopsWestfield wrote: > > >> DIP is like Octal base. They still work, but it's time to move to the > >> Compactrons for most work. > > > > I will sorely miss sockets (reasonably priced sockets.) > > I'm looking into buying a hot air rework station. I've never worked with > one, but it seems that this might make exchanging SMD parts almost as easy > as if they were socketed. > > Has anybody experience with those stations? Are my expectations close to > reality? > > Gerhard > _______________________________________________ > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > > _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist