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Well folks a couple years ago I asked everyone how they did ic chip removal and got lots of different answers and tried them all out, fine tuned the tools. And in my opinion found the best tools for it hands down. First off I will say dont just willy nilly take of chips if u dont know what ur doin u can ruin a board. Second I am a diesel performance mechanic not a e scrapper so I have a massive arsenal of tools to access. I will attach the photos below with part numbers and all that jazz. Details are a mini set of flush cut pointed dykes from snap on. For the real low profile ic chips with lots of legs I use these to cut a side and get underneath to pull off. Second is a pair of wide nose needle nose pliers from Mac. I use on normal profile ic chips from 3 legs to whatever. I squeeze hard so the force is spread across the whole mouth and twist them off. Simple as pie. If u break the chip u wernt squeezing hard enough and when u twisted all the pressure went to the corner. Now u maybe able to find similar tools cheaper else where idk but snap on and Mac are 100% life time warranty. Get dull free replacement break the tips off free replacement. Tp acquire these look online. Leave a message here with and email address and ill try to help. Or go to ur local mechanic shop and ask them to get u a set or ask when there snap on or Mac dealer comes and go then. I remember being the new guy many years ago so hopefully now I can help others. Thanks

Thank you for this reply! Definitely will help others for sure!

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Learning to grade or grading to learn.

Most people won’t be able to get anything from snap-on.
My suggestion for those that can’t: Teckton.

They aren’t the best but they are reliably rated in the top 10. Toss Craftsman tools from the top 10 (that’s a story in its own how they stay in the top anything) and they are the onl tools in the sub-specialist/premium) level stuff.

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I'm sad my sears warranties are now gone on most all my craftsman tools.

I've got some wiha stuff and use Walmart for cheap precision bits

Still haven't run across any of the weird 7 lobed bits but I got that project taken apart now so not worried about it.

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Here to learn more so I can recycle more
My grades are my own opinion and not an official grade from Boardsort

Wide nose needle nose ….. I’ve always called them duck bills. An instructor my first day in tech school held up a pair of needle nose and said if I see anybody with a pair of these they get a 0 for the quarter. Go get a pair of duck bills. When asked why, he explained that when pulling safety wire in tight quarters with needle nose, if it slips and goes in your eye, you’re done. With duckbills it’s still gonna hurt but you probably won’t lose your eye.

They can do almost anything needle nose can but a whole lot of other stuff too. They are one of my most used tools for scrapping and at my full time job. And needle nose pliers just suck. I have never had a pair I’ve liked.

Small enough, NNP can be useful if you breadboard.
I use them to pull pins and solder through.

I’d never use them for wire pulls. Forget your eye. You can micro-strip wire and create a testing nightmare.

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Lost what the hell is bread board? Lol
And yeah what I call duck bills are 3 inch wide vise grips. I actually call these fat tip pliers but was trying to be more professional hahaha

Building components from scratch. In my case it’s usually disk and interface controllers.
There’s cool stuff out there though like ras-pi and building processor replicas on a board.

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