Scavenging IC's

I’ve got a few electronics projects in mind, the problem, I’m cheap. Is it possible to scavenge IC’s from old boards, or does the desoldering process wreck them? My guess is that I’ll probably destroy the CMOS’s but I thought there may be techniques to get the TTL’s safely.

Also, are there any good sites that document old IC’s?

thanks

My guess is that CMOS and TTL IC’s will be equally easy or hard. CMOS is more susceptible to static damage (ESD), but newer ones are protected fairly well. But just inside the plastic case, there is a tiny gold wire connecting the metal pin to the chip itself. Don’t put enough heat into the pin to damage that bond wire.

A ‘solder sucker’ will help. It’s a spring loaded syringe that, well, sucks melted solder away from a pin.

As long as you are trying to save modern ICs (last, say 8 years) you will have no trouble. Set your iron to 600-700 degrees F. and heat up the solder. Use a solder sucker (see prev post) or solder braid to remove the excess solder. The tool you really want though is a heated solder sucker (actually I dont know the real name), which is a soldering iron combined with a vacuum. These are expensive though.

We unsolder tons of ICs where I work. But the problem you will run into is that almost everything produced now is surface mount. You won’t be able to reuse these. Or you wont be able to without a lot of trouble or equipment you don’t want to pay for.