I'm finally coming to the end of a long build, long because I decided to do 3 in parallel. It's certainly faster than doing one at a time but it's still a lot of work.
I powered up the 3 units today and not one of them works. What a gut-wrenching feeling! After a full review, I realized the problem was ... me, of course. I had ordered the wrong parts almost 5 years ago: CD40174BE (hex flip-flop) instead of CD4017BE (decade counter). I never realized it until today. Sigh.
Now I need to remove the 16-pin DIPs and replace them. What's the easiest method? I read a trick somewhere to cut the old IC out with a Dremel. Then it's relatively easy to pull the old pins one at a time. That sounds better to me than trying to solder-braid the solder out while the IC is in place. I've used solder braid a time or two and I always struggle with it.
Ideas?
This might be a good topic to include in @Wendy 's protoboard cookbook – how to fix them.
I powered up the 3 units today and not one of them works. What a gut-wrenching feeling! After a full review, I realized the problem was ... me, of course. I had ordered the wrong parts almost 5 years ago: CD40174BE (hex flip-flop) instead of CD4017BE (decade counter). I never realized it until today. Sigh.
Now I need to remove the 16-pin DIPs and replace them. What's the easiest method? I read a trick somewhere to cut the old IC out with a Dremel. Then it's relatively easy to pull the old pins one at a time. That sounds better to me than trying to solder-braid the solder out while the IC is in place. I've used solder braid a time or two and I always struggle with it.
Ideas?
This might be a good topic to include in @Wendy 's protoboard cookbook – how to fix them.