[Heath] To Sandy: SB-634 IC's

[John Klingelhoeffer]

Heathkit used notoriously cheap IC sockets.  I suffered through that for years with my GR-2001 TV until I just ended up soldering the IC's into the sockets.  Problems disappeared immediately.  


I'm sure the intent of IC sockets was to keep from having fried IC's by unsophisticated builders, but most sockets pretty much died after the warranty was up.  Or before.  The tin-plated steel leads lost their spring or oxide formed on the leads and the sockets doomed many a kit.  Look in just about any commercially assembled electronics unit from the 1970's to the 1990's.  No sockets.  Sockets = intermittent connections.  


For kits where I wanted to keep the sockets (such as the audio amplifier IC on the HW-2036 that cratered several times), I just replaced them with machine pin sockets.  A gold-flashed machine pin socket for a 16 pin DIP at Mouser costs a dollar.  More than worth the aggravation with intermittent operation.  At a hamfest, they are probably even cheaper.  


In most cases, I just removed the sockets and soldered the IC's directly to the board.  Most folks with solder-wick can remove a dead IC from the board without ruining the PCB. 


Good luck with your clock. 73


John...
WB4LNM
"One of the hams from Heath"









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