Best way to solder wires to ICs?

[museumoftechno]

Hello there

I've been doing some hunting online but haven't been able to answer this question: is there an accepted best technique for soldering wires to IC pins - IE should you solder to the legs themselves, or try to attach wires to the pins poking through the underside of the PCB?

I'd like to bend my old TR-626 drum machine, but I want to know the safest way up front, it'd be a shame to torch the ROM in the process.

Cheers

Dave

[Circuitbenders]

Always solder to the solder side of the board unless you have absolutely no choice. On the 626 its pretty easy to connect wires to the pins on the solder side.

If you have to solder to the IC legs on the component side do the soldering as quickly as you can in groups of 2 or 3 pins at a time leaving the chip a few seconds to cool down between soldering.

[Signal:Noise]

I've never had any luck soldering to teh solder side of the board, so i just solder to the legs. I do however rough up the pins with a needle file, blob a small bit of solder on before hand.

[Circuitbenders]

I've never had any luck soldering to teh solder side of the board, so i just solder to the legs. I do however rough up the pins with a needle file, blob a small bit of solder on before hand.

How is that possible, its exactly the same as soldering components to a board, which would be a bit tricky from the component side. Bizarre 

Surely you can 'blob a small bit of solder on before hand' to the pin on the solder side. Tin the wire and melt them together and job done.

Have you never killed a chip by overheating it?

[museumoftechno]

Thanks again!

I'm assuming that if I want to connect several switches to the same pin, I'd attach one wire to the pin and then attach my other switch wires to that wire..

In other news, I've found the component that's clocking my MT-52. It looks like... a coil, I think (from other articles I've read about this kind of thing): a chrome box, with a tuning screw on the top surface. I've got an old oscilloscope I picked up at a car boot for £6, and looking at that, the coil seems to be clocking somewhere in the region of 10-20 MHz. So I guess my mission is to find alternative components so that I can switch between the default frequency and something like half that... I'm enjoying this, thanks for the help.

Dave

[computer at sea]

I've never had any luck soldering to the solder side of the board, so i just solder to the legs. I do however rough up the pins with a needle file, blob a small bit of solder on before hand.

I do this when the solder side of the board is difficult to reach or there isn't much clearance inside the casing.  I've probably done around eight projects soldering onto the component side and haven't fried an IC yet.  So far being quick and steady with the soldering iron has been fine.

Though I do feel a bit bugged with myself when I do it that way.

[Circuitbenders]

In other news, I've found the component that's clocking my MT-52. It looks like... a coil, I think (from other articles I've read about this kind of thing): a chrome box, with a tuning screw on the top surface.

try this
http://www.circuitbenders.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,529.0.html

[Källman]

I was thinking about getting a breadboard, but im gonna try this method instead. Will probably fry a couple of em before i get the hang of it, but what the hell..