Congratulations!
I think it's a good idea to pull the chip and give everything a careful cleaning. Everyone has their own style and opinions when it comes to soldering, but since you asked, here are mine:
- Installing chips with hot air can be hard on them. I know, when it's a leadless package like a BGA or *FN, you have no choice, but I personally have damaged parts by installing them with hot air. I'm sure that many others would say that they've done it a bunch of times and never had a problem, but I've done a lot of them professionally and I have had some problems. We sent one particularly troublesome chip out to be X-rayed, and the images showed internal delamination after removal and installation with hot air. Other manufacturers' equivalent parts had no issues, but this one was just a bit less robust. A damaged part often still appeared to work, but was flaky and would no longer meet its datasheet specs. When installed with an iron, there was never a problem. Based on this experience, I changed my practices, and now if a part has leads, I will install it with an iron, even if it takes a little longer.
- I know it should be possible to drag-solder PLCCs, but I haven't found the right tip/flux/technique to do it without too many opens and shorts, which I have to go back and fix with an iron, at which point I haven't saved any time over just installing the whole part one pin at a time. Sometimes the opens and shorts are really hard to see.
- When installing a PLCC with an iron, I use a small chisel tip (0.6 or 0.8 mm). Assuming the pads are already lightly tinned, press the tip on the pad until it visibly melts, then feed the solder onto the pad and wick it up onto the lead. .010-.020 diameter solder works best. You will want a microscope or some other form of magnification. Once you get into a rhythm, you can go surprisingly quickly with this method.
Good luck!
I think it's a good idea to pull the chip and give everything a careful cleaning. Everyone has their own style and opinions when it comes to soldering, but since you asked, here are mine:
- Installing chips with hot air can be hard on them. I know, when it's a leadless package like a BGA or *FN, you have no choice, but I personally have damaged parts by installing them with hot air. I'm sure that many others would say that they've done it a bunch of times and never had a problem, but I've done a lot of them professionally and I have had some problems. We sent one particularly troublesome chip out to be X-rayed, and the images showed internal delamination after removal and installation with hot air. Other manufacturers' equivalent parts had no issues, but this one was just a bit less robust. A damaged part often still appeared to work, but was flaky and would no longer meet its datasheet specs. When installed with an iron, there was never a problem. Based on this experience, I changed my practices, and now if a part has leads, I will install it with an iron, even if it takes a little longer.
- I know it should be possible to drag-solder PLCCs, but I haven't found the right tip/flux/technique to do it without too many opens and shorts, which I have to go back and fix with an iron, at which point I haven't saved any time over just installing the whole part one pin at a time. Sometimes the opens and shorts are really hard to see.
- When installing a PLCC with an iron, I use a small chisel tip (0.6 or 0.8 mm). Assuming the pads are already lightly tinned, press the tip on the pad until it visibly melts, then feed the solder onto the pad and wick it up onto the lead. .010-.020 diameter solder works best. You will want a microscope or some other form of magnification. Once you get into a rhythm, you can go surprisingly quickly with this method.
Good luck!
) under the chip. Good find!
