Favorite Cutters For Snipping DIP Leads?

I use one of those craft knives with the break-off blades.

Isaac

Bit expensive:

See partnumber 3-674-15 too:

N_Cook wrote in news:laqv7h$v0t$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

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really

poor

I'd

Thus throwing small conductive bits all over the board. No thanks...

Doug White

tuinkabouter wrote in news:lard1b$vlb$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Actually, if you shop around, they can be had considerably cheaper than the Erem cutters:

If I don't get any better suggestions, I'll try them out.

Thanks!

Doug White

tuinkabouter wrote in news:lardd4$1mm$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

obl

Thanks! Actually, the 3-672-15's look even better. I don't need the heavily angled tip, it's just what I currently have. In some situations, it can cause issues with bumping into obstacles. Something really skinny with less angle would allow me to cut more from straight above, which is usually the only direction I'm guaranteed to have access.

Doug White

Reconsider your objection. You can blow the filings away with compressed air, and vacuum up.

The board is not powered up while you're doing this, right?

You could also mask the board off with a piece of paper (or whatever) that has a cutout just for the IC, if you're paranoid.

Its not as though the bits of metal grow dendrite or tin-whisker fashion. You'd have to be extremly unlucky to end up with a continous patch of dozens of minute particles forming a continuous path. Similar situation with solder paste, you cannot guarantee making all those tiny balls molten and aggregate together as one

Sure you can, if you like to do things wrong. We leased special air nozzles at Microdyne to eliminate the static charge caused by the air stream. This prevented ESD to sensitive components.

Hi,

I like the Xcelite model 170M

Another consideration is multiplicity of tool use. Such side cutters can only be used for very light duty, no power transistor leads or worse. Break the cutter face and an expensive replacement (especially if used in a shared workshop). Break a Dremmel disc and 20 cents to replace. And such drills have a some

I did this a few years ago when I had to remove a DIP and a five-lead TO-cased buffer from the top of a board.

The TO package came lose with a pair of cutters. I don't remember how I removed the DIP, but I'm pretty certain I used a cutoff disk. (Even if you have fine-tipped cutters, you run the risk of damaging the board from the force exerted.) I don't remember what I did about the fine shavings (if there were any).

I've got a decent set of cutters that I took to the grinding wheel, and trimped down the 'bits' that where in the way. I use them for SMD dips too.

George H.

Yes, those Xceltie snips are our cutters of choice in our shop too.

John :-#)#

Really? You ever test new boards, right out of the reflow oven? A lot of lead to lead shorts from balls of solder trapped under the IC's leads if the reflow profile, paste solder and a dozen other things aren't exactly right. I've removed hundreds of them from new boards. Metal dust doesn't have to make good connections to cause problems. I had a batch of new embedded computer boards come from the vendor with a problem. It wasn't caught at incoming inspection, so we stuffed and reflowed them. The were erratic as hell. I found the problem. The PCB house had scratched the film along a +5V rail. This was arching to the parallel ground plane, and right next to the input of an ADC. Know it alls claim you can't have an arc at that voltage. All you need is enough potential to jump the gap.

I have been using this from Home Depot

They are only $ 13.97 and include a needle nose pliers. They cut dip leads just fine and are cheap enough to keep a few sets around. It is a good bench set of tools.

This is a good point.

Early on I started using these imported (either Sweden or some where around there) diagonal cutters and thought they were surgeon tools. But in the early/mid 1980's, they were around $80 a set.

Thing was, even though they had a better life span than like Craftmans, they still didn't last more than 6 or 7 months, but they did see much heavier than normal use.

After a while, they did seem to be a waste of money, some of the over-the-counter brands like Xcelite were actually pretty good, shorter life span but good hand balance, narrow tip, hold angle.

Being you could get 6 or more pairs for the cost of 1 import, the difference in life span just didn't make sense with the imports.

-bruce snipped-for-privacy@ripco.com

Doug White wrote in news:XnsA2B1DC8B4BF2Fgwhitealummitedu@69.16.186.7:

really

poor

I'd

Thanks for all the input. I looked into some of the options, but the nicest cutters were either outrageously expensive, or out of stock. I finally ended up getting a pair of Erem 2470E "Diagonal Tapered Full Flush Tip" cutters, and they work perfectly!

Although they are nominally rated for only #24 wire, they seem to do just fine with the soft leads on the dips I've had to remove. No sign of any wear or strain on the jaws so far.

Doug White