A message on behalf of "the madscientist" who mysteriously got plunked...


i'm temporarily off list for as yet unspecified reasons (since
yesterday, i'm somewhat upset that i was banned without even being told
why, the list owner is working on finding out who did it and why...).

in any case, miller stephenson (www.miller-stephenson.com) makes and
excellent contact cleaner and lubricant that works on any sliding
contacts (not good on the old ram that just presses against the
contacts) and it's fantastic!  even better they will sample you a bottle
or aerosol can for $5.  the stuff works great on edge connectors, ram
chips, connectors of any kind, and should work great on sockets as well.
 you should give them a look.  they will sample many of their products
for $5 or sell a dozen mixed cans at once (i usually just sample, though
i did get one place i worked to buy from them, great stuff all around!).

you might forward this to the list, or at least the recommendation of
miller stephenson.  they even seem to be reasonably environmentally 
motivated.


Rick Thompson wrote:
>A trick I learned out of frustration one day on a board that didn't have 
>ICSP was to dump dry graphite lubricant (the fine powder stuff that is used 
>for key tumblers) right into the socket cups.  Then inserted & removed a 
>dummy chip a couple of times, then blew all the free graphite out of the 
>socket out with canned air.  This lessened the removal force a significant 
>amount.  Of course I wouldn't do this to anything other than a proto board.
>
> Rick
>
>
>> If you must perform a lot of insertions, the best way is to solder
>> a ZIF socket onto a pin header. Insert the pin header into your socket
>> and insert the PIC into the ZIF socket.
>>
>> Without doing that, the lifetime of most PIC chips is about 30 insertions
>> and removals.
>>


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