Hi Adrian, I drop shipped the ChipQuick as a way of desoldering SIMM and DIMM sockets. The alloy works with anything where you need to desolder something with a high thermal mass, and the brand name flux is completely optional (and should probably only be used with a fume extractor). Personally, I just use liquid or paste RA flux. Looking forward to seeing it in a future repair-a-thon. --Chris
Be careful with the chipquick thing. Cleaning _all_ residue of it is important because contaminated joints are really not great. I actually use a different tip on my iron just for that because I found it doesn't quite work as well after being used with that alloy ...
Ditto: I use it for removing very large components. Transformers, TO-247 etc components. Flooding through the hole with the alloy. Cleaning everything afterwords is important. I only use it for prototypes, never repair of something I would need to warranty the repair. It is also very damaging to the collection tube on the Hakko solder removal tool, and the guts of the Sold-a-pults.
It clogs my solder extractor nozzle like nobody’s business. But it has helped remove a couple of parts that I was struggling with. Bit of a double edged sword.
Thanks! The hardest part was actually getting it to print correctly on the labels. The templates are always off by a little bit and getting it all lined up right was a giant pain.
The Athlon and the Core 2 days were amazing for doing overclocks. I can't remember what my Athlon XP 2800+ overclocked to, but I remember my C2D E6300 going from around 1.86 to 3.2. Good times...
@@Laziter73 Whilst I didn't have stability issues the processor ended up lasting no more than 2 - 2 and a half years before never booting again. I had a decent cooling setup so thermals weren't poor, I just must have pushed it too hard. Regardless, considering the performance increase that I received it was more than worth it. Then I upgraded to an Athlon 64 4000+ which I also pushed to roughly 2.8 - 2.9
I think you should call the mini mail calls just "Mail Calls" and when you do the much larger mail calls with more items, call those "Mega Mail Calls" - I think those are attention grabbing and people will know they are in for a longer video too :)
I can confirm while beta testing Megan's ebook that it will run on an Amstrad PPC640, so pre 286! It'll just need a bit of finessing to fit on a 720k disk.
I’d test chip quick on a scrap through hole board, there’s a lot more solder used on through hole chips and on a through plated board, you’d need it to flow through the board for it to stand a chance of working correctly… a good heated solder sucker with a proper vacuum motor is needed to successfully get them out intact in my experience.
SMD, through hole, no hole, glass of hot water, ChipQwik et al is magic in a stick. It's great for working on boards with large grounding planes that will suck all of your heat away. It is proprietary alloy probably containing mostly bismuth with some lead mixed in. Usually cleaning up your work with solder wick is good enough to get the alloy out of your work, but any bits of it will of course lower the melting point of what solder you are working with. I don't do much laptop power jack soldering anymore (manufacturers tend to use jacks on cables now) but this stuff made replacing jacks at my computer shop almost pleasurable back in the day.
Yes, the Chipquick will work for DIP chips. I don't have a desoldering gun, but I used Chipquick to remove and socket all the main IC's on my C64. It also really helps to use generous amounts of the flux in the syringe. It also helps to put some on the top side of the chips pins to get it to flow thru the vias AND to use hot air to keep all the joints hot enough to prevent the Chipquick from solidifying. As usual 3 hands are always more helpful. Cleanup isn't much fun, but lots of flux and solder wick works.
Flux usually lasts longer when stored in the fridge, so if you're not planning to use that Chipquik kit for a while, you can just toss the whole bag in the back of the fridge to keep it in good condition. Solder *paste* is especially sensitive and benefits even more from being stored in the fridge, but even regular flux is best stored at somewhat cold temperature. 18:07 While it isn't orange, this heatsink likely is copper just with a nickel plating to give it extra corrosion resistance. I believe those heatsinks are "skived", where the thin blades are sliced from the parent block and folded up to form the final heatsink structure with a minimum of bonding and wasted material.
DIP desolder with low-melt works fine. mix in chip-quick first to solder joints. then hot air really low temp can be used from back is ok. After removal remove the low-melt because it have poor mechanical strength. but super usefull tool to have! - Thanks, for a cool channel :)
I had a couple of Durons and thunderbirds back in the day. I actually loved mine; the Durons weren't screamers but in my experience they were rock-solid and reliable. My last of the generation was a a T-Bird 1400. Seeing those old CPUs brings back memories.
That e-book reminds me of an experimental tape-based e-book program I did for a 5K VIC-20. I encoded The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland onto emulator tape images, and the software displays uppercase-only text formatted as 40-column by 32-line screens. To navigate, simply fast-forward or rewind the tape and then start playing; the program will within a couple seconds show the contents at whatever the present location on tape is. Text display isn't quite as fast as on the AT running from floppy, but would be fast enough to make the program usable for actually reading a book if I added logic to pause the tape between pages.
I think someone told me to use low melt solder on my C64. I never heard of it before. I ended up using what I had, but I think this is what they were talking about. It would have been nice. Probably would have avoided trace damage.
I really love the way you do your mail calls, how you unbox the stuff and then take it to the bench. Either way I'm pretty sure I will like your new style.
Adrian, for straightening the bent IC pins, I recently saw a Clockmaker using a fine tool with a small hole drilled into its center. The tool looked like a short pencil, with a slightly pointed end. He was straightening bent pins on an "escapement(?) wheel" where all of the steel pins had been bent. None of his pins bent, so if you can get/make a similar tool, you might be able to save some of the chips that you would otherwise throw away.
Apparently those mechanical pencil can work for this method, though I have not tried it myself. With enough patience the during pins can probably be saved.
@@bionicgeekgrrl That _might_ work, depending on the mechanical pencil's design. I've got some really old, large diameter lead mechanical pencils (0.7-0.9mm?) that have tips that wouldn't bend or break like most of my "newer" mechanical pencils would. I think I'd just drill a small hole in a small diameter piece of plastic or metal and use that, but since you've mentioned it, I think I'll try to find one of those old pencils to see if the "lead diameter" is too large or small enough to fit the pins. And measure some IC pins to see if an even larger "lead diameter" pencil is needed since I've got a few. Thanks for the tip!
@@bobvines00 Another option might be brass tube as sold for model making, you can get some very find diameter tubes. Often available in plastic, but the brass will probably be a bit more durable.
Honestly I've never used chip quik, the few times I've had to remove SMD chips I've had good enough results with the enameled wire pull method. Thread a piece of thin but strong-enough enameled wire under the pins and solder the end of it to a nearby ground pad or something which you can pull on without worrying. Then gently pull the other end outward away from the chip and start heating up the pins one by one. The wire will lift up the pin and slide through the solder leaving a tiny air gap. Repeat for the other side(s), holding the chip in place with your other hand when you get to the last few pins. It doesn't put much strain at all on the pads because the solder has to flow before anything moves. If you plan to reuse the chip then the pins will probably solder fine without even bending them back down. You can probably buy suitable wire on a roll for cheap, but personally I just salvage from random little DC motors I took out of things and it lasts me ages.
A lot of medium-high coolers have a copper core surrounded by aluminum. So the "hot spot" is copper and the sides are aluminum. It works pretty well and cheaper than solid copper.
The AMD duron was a great chip and easy to overclock. You just had to use a pencil to join the pins on the top of the cpu to unlock the multiplier. I used an overclocked one of these for years without problems.
For those that don't know, the 558 is the stereotypical computer-side IBM PC joystick chip. It's effectively four 555 timers in a single package, with some of the pins either tied together, or not even exposed at all. The power and grounds obviously are tied to each other, but pin 5 (the resistor-divider access pin on the 555) is either tied together or not exposed, and I _think_ that one of the reset pins is treated about the same. The outputs & commonly used timer pins are exposed without being tied together.
I've used chipquik to desolder DIP ic's, first I wicked out as much of the old solder as would come off easily, then reflow with the low temp stuff, then just knock the board and the chip falls out, taking the solder with it leaving nice open holes for the new ic/socket. A bit of hot air or a preheat plate can help, especially for large components with more pins - low temp solder only needs 130C, so your other components won't fall out or get fried
That add-on solder is an alloy called roses metal. It has a melting point around 94°C. And the idea is like you say to add it to a solder joint, thereby lowering the overall melting point. That comes in handy in very cramped spaces with high density of SMD parts next to a multi pin SMD chip. If you treat the joints on the chip with that roses metal, it enables you to reduce the temperature on the hotair soldering station significantly when taking the chip off. This way you avoid tiny (lower thermal mass) SMD components in the vincinity of the chip to unsolder too (or first) and dislodge in the air stream. Unsoldering SMD with an iron is a (wasteful) side use. On through hole parts you would apply it like you were resoldering and then use hot air to unsolder the IC. Remember with through hole compoents on multi layer PCB you have the eyelets drawing away heat. So hot air may be better suited to keep all joints heated and molten.
Yup, ChipQuick is a proprietary variation on either Rose's or Wood's metal. The MSDS lists the ingredients for both alloys to preserve their formula as a trade secret.
I don't think it was chip quick, but I used some "desoldering" solder to remove a castlellated radio module from a PCB after mangling the pads trying to just heat and pry with an iron. The low temp solder is a life saver.
Hey Adrian. I don't totally agree with the way you are managing the second channel. I've subscribed to you a couple of years ago and I do enjoy all your content but now I'm forced to be subscribed to yet another channel to get the same content that I was used to see. I agree that you could have a second channel for bloopers or quick 5 minutes videos with no editing of you doing a follow up on a subject or something that is not that related to your main type of videos. Just create playlists on your main channel and focus all your work on the main channel. Because you work so hard on your videos, you should keep them here for everyone to enjoy. Don't be afraid of posting 2 or 3 videos per week on the primary channel if they are high quality. People will still subscribe and see your content Thank you for your work. I do enjoy your videos because I work on board level repairs but only on modern hardware. It's great to see how things were done before I was born and how they are now.
Chipquik works well on through hole components with a lot of pins too if you don't have a hot air station (like me), but it's very expensive, especially for through hole as you need a lot of it. It's amazing though, it's like magic. I just wish you could buy entire rolls of it instead of the itty little bit you get in a pack. I used it to desolder and replace analog sticks on my Valve Index controllers. They're through hole but they have like 14 pins and anyone who has ever tried desoldering a component with that many pins using a soldering station knows it's near impossible to get every little bit of solder off in order for the part to release, and if you can't get all the solder off you risk ripping some pads.
I've used chip quick on DIP type chips. I just reflow the pins with a little bit of it and then use the solder sucker. The holes always come out clean and this lets me use much less heat.
These BIOS chips are Flash, not strictly EEPROMS. 29C020 is 2Mbit, so perfectly fine, for an Atari ST (with an adapter), as well as for its cartridges. 49F010 in DIP package also fits perfectly and directly to STe (actually, you need 2 of these). It may be used as a direct replacement of 27C010 UV-EPROM.
Hobbyist luthier? She makes stringed instruments (a luthier usually deals with guitars, banjos, mandolins, and the like). What a cool e-book. I'll have to look for it. Micro Mail Call would be good. How old does a chip have to be to be "retro"? Twenty-one years is not enough?
Even having little memory, This PROM can be use as primitive programable logic because it have tri-state and chip select. I remember back in the day, I used to call this as "Poor man's CPLD".
The 82S123 and the 74288 are pincompatible iirc. They were very popular in arcade machines from around '79 to '83 as color PROMs. Putting an EPROM in there will result in sparkles, I know first hand. I use these old BIOS Flash chips for multicarts for old games systems like Atari 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex... 27:38 it's faking a Linux but the slashes are the wrong way round!
I thought those PROMs could potentially be used for the Apple 1 at first, but they are the "open collector" type instead of the "tri-state" version. The tri-state is 82S123N.
Sure you can save these CPUs with a little patience. I found this to be a very relaxing job, kind of like Yoga ;-) With the help of a mechanical pencil I straightened hundreds, maybe thousands of such bent pins. The only ones that ever broke were the ones on early P4s. Of those, all pins ripped off the solder blob with them (but not the pad). I'm not sure why that is but the solder on those early P4s I got generally looked very dull and brittle.
The duron chips seem to be popular with retro gamers wanting to cover earlier dos up to Windows 98 as they can often be underclocked and in some cases the cache disabled and good enough at stock to run a number of windows 98 games with appropriate 3d acceleration hardware. Those pins can probably be saved with enough patience and something like a mechanical pencil and razor blade, though some might break requiring resoldering of donor pins.
I can understand the frustration of camera frame rate. With 3 separate cameras (2 Canon, 1 Sony), I can get none of them to perfectly match a TV screen refresh rate so they don't show the scan. That's even with CHDK and Magic Lantern to custom tweak the frame rates.
@@jerrymcgrillen1301 I upgraded it with the Tualatin-S 1.4ghz, 1.5gb ram, and a Nvidia 6600gt. It plays all my movies in 720p just fine with the right drivers and codecs. It runs every old emulator I want and has all the Windows 98/XP games and software from back in the day. I will never let that system go it will be with me until the very end. I have 3-2-1 backups of everything, a full system image, and a VM just for good measure. I have the latest iPhone for everything else like online banking and email.
Well I understand you. I've some experience with music producing on p3/256ram. Video decoding acceleration is NV 6xxx advantage, but for... Not for h264. CPU decoding only, but for p3 capable also.
I haven't used chipquick, but some non-branded low temperature alloy (55.5% Bi / 44.5% Pb) from eBay. I've used it to desolder some DIP sockets from a board., so it should work fine for THT parts.
I've been bingeing on your channels, and all of the other episodes I've watched so far had auto captions. This specific episode doesn't. I was still able to watch it using the Google Live Captions function that's available in Android 12 and up, but for those with older phones, they are out of luck 😢
I'm thinking it's random because of the nature of opening mail. Perhaps you can call it, "MAIL CALL: Random Episode Generator" you could use a diagram of a Random Number Generator circuit as the logo
If you really wanted to nerd out, why not try MC2, like Einstein's famous E=MC2 formula. There is another variation of the Fujitsu CPU that was seen here, which I have one of. It's the MBL8088-1 which is rated for 10MHz. Eat that NEC V20! lol 🤣 If I had a copy of Chromaspace like what was shown here, I would actually have a use for my Intermec 0100 386SX-40 machine.
LOL, I mentioned low melt solder in the past ;p Always use flux and for tough removals just a tiny bit of low melt. It's such a goto, I use that for everything 100% of the time. There's just no reason not to.
Maybe just "Mail Call" for the regular ones and "Mini Mail Call" for the smaller ones. Always have the option to go "Major/Super/etc Mail Call" for special big ones.
Ah, yes.. the good old Socket A. I've got what I think is a XP1900+ Athlon about, but I'm lacking an AGP graphics card to put it to use, so the system is collecting dust. These processors are probably perfect for an XP or 2000 build, rather than 98. I had a Thunderbird before that one, and I too remember there was a way to unlock the chips with a pencil. Kinda funny nowadays.
Hey! Thanks so much for featuring my book! I'm glad you thought it was cool.
The preview on DOS floppies was a brilliant idea!
That’s super sweet :D
DOS e-books is such a neat concept! I may try something similar, though my stories aren't sci-fi/adventure so it'll take some thinking...
"Micro Mail Call" or "Mail Call Micro" would get my vote, and fits neatly into the retro computer vibe! :-)
Seems to be a pretty popular suggestion.
µMail-Call
"Really Mini For Real This Time Mail Call"
This
MicroCall or μCall maybe?
I would call them “Micro Mail-Call”.
I was just coming to post just that.
@@MorganTN Ditto! Micro for sure.
UMC
Aye, Micro Mail-Call.
Hi Adrian,
I drop shipped the ChipQuick as a way of desoldering SIMM and DIMM sockets.
The alloy works with anything where you need to desolder something with a high thermal mass, and the brand name flux is completely optional (and should probably only be used with a fume extractor). Personally, I just use liquid or paste RA flux.
Looking forward to seeing it in a future repair-a-thon.
--Chris
Rather neat for that ebook to have an entire DOS environment constructed for it to exist in, nice job Megan... :D
Be careful with the chipquick thing. Cleaning _all_ residue of it is important because contaminated joints are really not great. I actually use a different tip on my iron just for that because I found it doesn't quite work as well after being used with that alloy ...
Ditto: I use it for removing very large components. Transformers, TO-247 etc components. Flooding through the hole with the alloy. Cleaning everything afterwords is important. I only use it for prototypes, never repair of something I would need to warranty the repair. It is also very damaging to the collection tube on the Hakko solder removal tool, and the guts of the Sold-a-pults.
It clogs my solder extractor nozzle like nobody’s business. But it has helped remove a couple of parts that I was struggling with. Bit of a double edged sword.
Megan did a good job on the labels on those disks. They look really cool, at least on YT.
Thanks! The hardest part was actually getting it to print correctly on the labels. The templates are always off by a little bit and getting it all lined up right was a giant pain.
I have used the low melt solder to remove all sorts of components that was tricky, it works very well on anything.
I’m gonna have to get some of that, it looks so useful!
@@jonchapman6821 very useful, but also expensive so save it for very special jobs.
Those Athlons overclocked like crazy.
I had a XP 1800+ clocked from stock 1.533 MHz to 2.500 MHz. Watercooled of course to keep it rock stable.
Those were amazing days 😂
The Athlon and the Core 2 days were amazing for doing overclocks. I can't remember what my Athlon XP 2800+ overclocked to, but I remember my C2D E6300 going from around 1.86 to 3.2. Good times...
@@lilross88 Got my XP 1800+ to 2.8
@@TheSkytherMod Dang.. Must have been one of those with AIUHB stepping, mine was JIUHB and wouldn't clock much beyond 2.5GHz before becoming unstable.
@@Laziter73 Whilst I didn't have stability issues the processor ended up lasting no more than 2 - 2 and a half years before never booting again. I had a decent cooling setup so thermals weren't poor, I just must have pushed it too hard. Regardless, considering the performance increase that I received it was more than worth it. Then I upgraded to an Athlon 64 4000+ which I also pushed to roughly 2.8 - 2.9
I think you should call the mini mail calls just "Mail Calls" and when you do the much larger mail calls with more items, call those "Mega Mail Calls" - I think those are attention grabbing and people will know they are in for a longer video too :)
MMMMEEGGGAAA MAIL CALL! 😁
I can confirm while beta testing Megan's ebook that it will run on an Amstrad PPC640, so pre 286! It'll just need a bit of finessing to fit on a 720k disk.
Chipquick is also super handy for stubborn through-hole leads
I’d test chip quick on a scrap through hole board, there’s a lot more solder used on through hole chips and on a through plated board, you’d need it to flow through the board for it to stand a chance of working correctly… a good heated solder sucker with a proper vacuum motor is needed to successfully get them out intact in my experience.
SMD, through hole, no hole, glass of hot water, ChipQwik et al is magic in a stick. It's great for working on boards with large grounding planes that will suck all of your heat away. It is proprietary alloy probably containing mostly bismuth with some lead mixed in. Usually cleaning up your work with solder wick is good enough to get the alloy out of your work, but any bits of it will of course lower the melting point of what solder you are working with. I don't do much laptop power jack soldering anymore (manufacturers tend to use jacks on cables now) but this stuff made replacing jacks at my computer shop almost pleasurable back in the day.
Yes, the Chipquick will work for DIP chips. I don't have a desoldering gun, but I used Chipquick to remove and socket all the main IC's on my C64. It also really helps to use generous amounts of the flux in the syringe. It also helps to put some on the top side of the chips pins to get it to flow thru the vias AND to use hot air to keep all the joints hot enough to prevent the Chipquick from solidifying. As usual 3 hands are always more helpful. Cleanup isn't much fun, but lots of flux and solder wick works.
Flux usually lasts longer when stored in the fridge, so if you're not planning to use that Chipquik kit for a while, you can just toss the whole bag in the back of the fridge to keep it in good condition. Solder *paste* is especially sensitive and benefits even more from being stored in the fridge, but even regular flux is best stored at somewhat cold temperature.
18:07 While it isn't orange, this heatsink likely is copper just with a nickel plating to give it extra corrosion resistance. I believe those heatsinks are "skived", where the thin blades are sliced from the parent block and folded up to form the final heatsink structure with a minimum of bonding and wasted material.
DIP desolder with low-melt works fine. mix in chip-quick first to solder joints. then hot air really low temp can be used from back is ok. After removal remove the low-melt because it have poor mechanical strength. but super usefull tool to have! - Thanks, for a cool channel :)
I had a couple of Durons and thunderbirds back in the day. I actually loved mine; the Durons weren't screamers but in my experience they were rock-solid and reliable. My last of the generation was a a T-Bird 1400. Seeing those old CPUs brings back memories.
Name idea: “Honey, I shrunk the mail call!”
That e-book reminds me of an experimental tape-based e-book program I did for a 5K VIC-20. I encoded The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland onto emulator tape images, and the software displays uppercase-only text formatted as 40-column by 32-line screens. To navigate, simply fast-forward or rewind the tape and then start playing; the program will within a couple seconds show the contents at whatever the present location on tape is. Text display isn't quite as fast as on the AT running from floppy, but would be fast enough to make the program usable for actually reading a book if I added logic to pause the tape between pages.
It's so cool that there's another regular viewer from Wyoming!
I think someone told me to use low melt solder on my C64. I never heard of it before. I ended up using what I had, but I think this is what they were talking about. It would have been nice. Probably would have avoided trace damage.
I really love the way you do your mail calls, how you unbox the stuff and then take it to the bench. Either way I'm pretty sure I will like your new style.
Adrian, for straightening the bent IC pins, I recently saw a Clockmaker using a fine tool with a small hole drilled into its center. The tool looked like a short pencil, with a slightly pointed end. He was straightening bent pins on an "escapement(?) wheel" where all of the steel pins had been bent. None of his pins bent, so if you can get/make a similar tool, you might be able to save some of the chips that you would otherwise throw away.
Apparently those mechanical pencil can work for this method, though I have not tried it myself. With enough patience the during pins can probably be saved.
@@bionicgeekgrrl That _might_ work, depending on the mechanical pencil's design. I've got some really old, large diameter lead mechanical pencils (0.7-0.9mm?) that have tips that wouldn't bend or break like most of my "newer" mechanical pencils would. I think I'd just drill a small hole in a small diameter piece of plastic or metal and use that, but since you've mentioned it, I think I'll try to find one of those old pencils to see if the "lead diameter" is too large or small enough to fit the pins. And measure some IC pins to see if an even larger "lead diameter" pencil is needed since I've got a few. Thanks for the tip!
@@bobvines00 Another option might be brass tube as sold for model making, you can get some very find diameter tubes. Often available in plastic, but the brass will probably be a bit more durable.
@@bionicgeekgrrl Great idea!
Off subject, but I like your shirt, Adrian! That's pretty cool! I've always liked landscape designs on shirts.
Honestly I've never used chip quik, the few times I've had to remove SMD chips I've had good enough results with the enameled wire pull method.
Thread a piece of thin but strong-enough enameled wire under the pins and solder the end of it to a nearby ground pad or something which you can pull on without worrying. Then gently pull the other end outward away from the chip and start heating up the pins one by one. The wire will lift up the pin and slide through the solder leaving a tiny air gap. Repeat for the other side(s), holding the chip in place with your other hand when you get to the last few pins. It doesn't put much strain at all on the pads because the solder has to flow before anything moves. If you plan to reuse the chip then the pins will probably solder fine without even bending them back down.
You can probably buy suitable wire on a roll for cheap, but personally I just salvage from random little DC motors I took out of things and it lasts me ages.
A lot of medium-high coolers have a copper core surrounded by aluminum. So the "hot spot" is copper and the sides are aluminum. It works pretty well and cheaper than solid copper.
i would go with either "Tiny Mail Call" or "It came from the post !"
"IT came from the post" for strange items and "Tiny Mail Call" for everything else? This would be good :D
As long as you don't call it Tiny Small Mail Call. You might run into copyright issues.
The AMD duron was a great chip and easy to overclock. You just had to use a pencil to join the pins on the top of the cpu to unlock the multiplier. I used an overclocked one of these for years without problems.
For those that don't know, the 558 is the stereotypical computer-side IBM PC joystick chip. It's effectively four 555 timers in a single package, with some of the pins either tied together, or not even exposed at all. The power and grounds obviously are tied to each other, but pin 5 (the resistor-divider access pin on the 555) is either tied together or not exposed, and I _think_ that one of the reset pins is treated about the same. The outputs & commonly used timer pins are exposed without being tied together.
You are (mostly) right: the 558 quad timers have reset and trig for each timer tied together, the rest is just as on the 555 and 556 ICs.
That chip quik stuff looks super useful! I’m looking forward to the video where you test it out!
I've used chipquik to desolder DIP ic's, first I wicked out as much of the old solder as would come off easily, then reflow with the low temp stuff, then just knock the board and the chip falls out, taking the solder with it leaving nice open holes for the new ic/socket. A bit of hot air or a preheat plate can help, especially for large components with more pins - low temp solder only needs 130C, so your other components won't fall out or get fried
Chip Quik is good stuff. I think it works for any solder at all it essentially just lowers the melting point.
That add-on solder is an alloy called roses metal. It has a melting point around 94°C. And the idea is like you say to add it to a solder joint, thereby lowering the overall melting point. That comes in handy in very cramped spaces with high density of SMD parts next to a multi pin SMD chip. If you treat the joints on the chip with that roses metal, it enables you to reduce the temperature on the hotair soldering station significantly when taking the chip off. This way you avoid tiny (lower thermal mass) SMD components in the vincinity of the chip to unsolder too (or first) and dislodge in the air stream. Unsoldering SMD with an iron is a (wasteful) side use.
On through hole parts you would apply it like you were resoldering and then use hot air to unsolder the IC. Remember with through hole compoents on multi layer PCB you have the eyelets drawing away heat. So hot air may be better suited to keep all joints heated and molten.
Yup, ChipQuick is a proprietary variation on either Rose's or Wood's metal. The MSDS lists the ingredients for both alloys to preserve their formula as a trade secret.
I don't think it was chip quick, but I used some "desoldering" solder to remove a castlellated radio module from a PCB after mangling the pads trying to just heat and pry with an iron. The low temp solder is a life saver.
Hey Adrian. I don't totally agree with the way you are managing the second channel. I've subscribed to you a couple of years ago and I do enjoy all your content but now I'm forced to be subscribed to yet another channel to get the same content that I was used to see. I agree that you could have a second channel for bloopers or quick 5 minutes videos with no editing of you doing a follow up on a subject or something that is not that related to your main type of videos. Just create playlists on your main channel and focus all your work on the main channel. Because you work so hard on your videos, you should keep them here for everyone to enjoy. Don't be afraid of posting 2 or 3 videos per week on the primary channel if they are high quality. People will still subscribe and see your content
Thank you for your work. I do enjoy your videos because I work on board level repairs but only on modern hardware. It's great to see how things were done before I was born and how they are now.
Niagara Falls, NY is about 20 minutes west of me. I had no idea a Chip Quik plant was located there until now. :)
funny because those miniminiminiminimicro mailcalls are almost as long as classic mail calls :D
Chipquik works well on through hole components with a lot of pins too if you don't have a hot air station (like me), but it's very expensive, especially for through hole as you need a lot of it. It's amazing though, it's like magic. I just wish you could buy entire rolls of it instead of the itty little bit you get in a pack. I used it to desolder and replace analog sticks on my Valve Index controllers. They're through hole but they have like 14 pins and anyone who has ever tried desoldering a component with that many pins using a soldering station knows it's near impossible to get every little bit of solder off in order for the part to release, and if you can't get all the solder off you risk ripping some pads.
I've used chip quick on DIP type chips. I just reflow the pins with a little bit of it and then use the solder sucker. The holes always come out clean and this lets me use much less heat.
These BIOS chips are Flash, not strictly EEPROMS. 29C020 is 2Mbit, so perfectly fine, for an Atari ST (with an adapter), as well as for its cartridges. 49F010 in DIP package also fits perfectly and directly to STe (actually, you need 2 of these). It may be used as a direct replacement of 27C010 UV-EPROM.
I saw a suggestion for micro mail call by someone on a mmc video, which I think is clever and indicates that they're smaller than a mini mail call.
Chip Quik works great on PLCC and QFP. Never tried it on through hole. Their gel flux is my favourite aswell.
Works great on through hole, I used it before getting a desoldering gun.
I vote for Micro Mail Call ☎️
Lol when your mail call makes your floor look like a vending machine stock room.
Hobbyist luthier? She makes stringed instruments (a luthier usually deals with guitars, banjos, mandolins, and the like).
What a cool e-book. I'll have to look for it.
Micro Mail Call would be good.
How old does a chip have to be to be "retro"? Twenty-one years is not enough?
Even having little memory, This PROM can be use as primitive programable logic because it have tri-state and chip select. I remember back in the day, I used to call this as "Poor man's CPLD".
The 82S123 and the 74288 are pincompatible iirc. They were very popular in arcade machines from around '79 to '83 as color PROMs. Putting an EPROM in there will result in sparkles, I know first hand.
I use these old BIOS Flash chips for multicarts for old games systems like Atari 2600, Colecovision, Vectrex...
27:38 it's faking a Linux but the slashes are the wrong way round!
I thought those PROMs could potentially be used for the Apple 1 at first, but they are the "open collector" type instead of the "tri-state" version. The tri-state is 82S123N.
Sure you can save these CPUs with a little patience. I found this to be a very relaxing job, kind of like Yoga ;-) With the help of a mechanical pencil I straightened hundreds, maybe thousands of such bent pins. The only ones that ever broke were the ones on early P4s. Of those, all pins ripped off the solder blob with them (but not the pad). I'm not sure why that is but the solder on those early P4s I got generally looked very dull and brittle.
The duron chips seem to be popular with retro gamers wanting to cover earlier dos up to Windows 98 as they can often be underclocked and in some cases the cache disabled and good enough at stock to run a number of windows 98 games with appropriate 3d acceleration hardware.
Those pins can probably be saved with enough patience and something like a mechanical pencil and razor blade, though some might break requiring resoldering of donor pins.
Call the new mini mail calls tardigrades...Because they're tiny, but they're still beasts.
Works great with a hot air rework station for SMD stuff. Cleanup, as others have mentioned is very important.
Instead of calling it “mail call”, how about, “Adrian’s Delivery Buffer”! 🤣😂
Hey Adrian. Love your videos. Can I ask what is the Commodore Security badge all about?
Micro mail call was my suggestion as well on the last second channel video.
Welcome to Micro-Mail... sounds cool.
The second channel name? "You've got Mail!" :D
Hi Adrian been watching yor channels for a good while now brilliant keep up the good work. All the best Jonathan from Barnsley England
I might have to try the cotton method as I never have any solder wick handy.
I don't know if I mentioned this before on this channel but the N82S100 was actually the world's first programmable logic device.
Re name for the 'mini mini mail call'.......what about a micro mini mail call? It seems kinda appropriate ;)
I can understand the frustration of camera frame rate. With 3 separate cameras (2 Canon, 1 Sony), I can get none of them to perfectly match a TV screen refresh rate so they don't show the scan. That's even with CHDK and Magic Lantern to custom tweak the frame rates.
The 8088 without a dash number was actually 5mhz. Intel had a dash number tor the slower 4.77 mhz part, especially for IBM. I think that was a -5.
I think you should call your MMC the 16K Mailcall - just my two cents worth!
Transmissions from the Sneakernet
pencil trick was on the AMD thunderbird cpus to allow unlocking the multiplier
That floppy ebook is so cool i want one
Ideas for names:
- ADB Receiving bits
- Basement Bits
- Basement Receiving Bits
You should name them similar to Binary Sizes. Mail Bits, Mail nibbles and Mail Bytes depending on the size of the mail call you are posting.
how about Adrian's Digital Mailcall ? wherever you post, them I'll watch them LOL
Micro is the logical choice. But I might even go for 'Micro-Mini-Mailcall", aka MMM.
Mini Midweek Mailcall in Adrian's Digital Crawlspace. I think the 2nd channel should move to the crawlspace!
How about “micro, I got enough snacks, mail call”
I have a solid copper heatsink for my Pentium 3 Tualatin desktop. It keeps the temps pretty cool.
Lowcosters around us
@@jerrymcgrillen1301 I upgraded it with the Tualatin-S 1.4ghz, 1.5gb ram, and a Nvidia 6600gt. It plays all my movies in 720p just fine with the right drivers and codecs. It runs every old emulator I want and has all the Windows 98/XP games and software from back in the day. I will never let that system go it will be with me until the very end. I have 3-2-1 backups of everything, a full system image, and a VM just for good measure. I have the latest iPhone for everything else like online banking and email.
Well I understand you. I've some experience with music producing on p3/256ram. Video decoding acceleration is NV 6xxx advantage, but for... Not for h264. CPU decoding only, but for p3 capable also.
I haven't used chipquick, but some non-branded low temperature alloy (55.5% Bi / 44.5% Pb) from eBay. I've used it to desolder some DIP sockets from a board., so it should work fine for THT parts.
Looks like that Duron Duron reached The Point of No Return!
I've been bingeing on your channels, and all of the other episodes I've watched so far had auto captions. This specific episode doesn't. I was still able to watch it using the Google Live Captions function that's available in Android 12 and up, but for those with older phones, they are out of luck 😢
I'm thinking it's random because of the nature of opening mail. Perhaps you can call it,
"MAIL CALL: Random Episode Generator" you could use a diagram of a Random Number Generator circuit as the logo
Aaahhh I was realy hoping you'll try that ChipQuick on some through the hole IC, realy wondering if it helps because removing them is realy PITA. 🙂
Protipp: Buy Rose's metal in pallets. They cost a fraction of chipquick and does the same.
That combination of t-shirt and syringe @ 15:07 gave me such a bad case of black humor 😂
It’s Mail Call 64! :)
If you really wanted to nerd out, why not try MC2, like Einstein's famous E=MC2 formula.
There is another variation of the Fujitsu CPU that was seen here, which I have one of. It's the MBL8088-1 which is rated for 10MHz. Eat that NEC V20! lol 🤣
If I had a copy of Chromaspace like what was shown here, I would actually have a use for my Intermec 0100 386SX-40 machine.
How about "POST Code" or something along those lines for the mini mail call name?
LOL, I mentioned low melt solder in the past ;p
Always use flux and for tough removals just a tiny bit of low melt.
It's such a goto, I use that for everything 100% of the time. There's just no reason not to.
Micro Mail Call (μmc)
Maybe just "Mail Call" for the regular ones and "Mini Mail Call" for the smaller ones. Always have the option to go "Major/Super/etc Mail Call" for special big ones.
Micro mail call or nano mail call.
Those old AMD processors run linux quite well and make great little file servers.
Micro mail call (MMC)
Micro Mail Call is the most obvious choice.
No Subtitles... 😞
You have bytes, bits and nibbles.
Macro, Mini, Micro, Nano, Pico.
Many options.
Don´t forget Femto and Atto lol
Adrian, I think you will find that the AD558 is an 8bit ADC not a ??555 timer or ??556 double timer
Major and mini mail call
You're going to have to start a candy channel!
An interesting fact about bipolar PROMs: they need to have each bit of each data word programmed individually.
i used chipquik a while ago, did just fine but it's pretty messy. i had to clean up my soldering tip and the board pretty carefully.
Ah, yes.. the good old Socket A. I've got what I think is a XP1900+ Athlon about, but I'm lacking an AGP graphics card to put it to use, so the system is collecting dust. These processors are probably perfect for an XP or 2000 build, rather than 98. I had a Thunderbird before that one, and I too remember there was a way to unlock the chips with a pencil. Kinda funny nowadays.
How about "Mail Call Bits" for the short vids and "Mail Call Bytes" for the longer vids?
Name suggestion: m2mc. Mini squared mail call or 3mc (mini mini mail) call