Sometimes you can salvage IC with broken off pin. You will need very fine soldering tip, SMD solder (very thin one), tweezers, magnifying glass and very thin wire. Tin end of the wire and glue it to some convenient spot on PCB. Clamp PCB in small vice so it cannot move and heat face of broken pin for about 5 sec. Soldering iron set at 350 degrees. Apply very little of solder. If some of the solder stick to the face of pin you have succeeded. Bend the wire so it lies against face of broken pin. Apply heat on the join briefly so solder flows and two surfaces are joined. Mechanically such a joint will be very weak but electrically it should be OK for small signals.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on patience and the skills.
You could also dig away the top of the chip very carefully to expose some of the track where you broke the leg off, I have seen this done on other devices before. A dremel would be handy for this I reckon..then you can solder straight to the track...cheers
Yeah thanks the info guys, smd's are such a pain in the tracks..
I was looking last night at non-heat solder (kinda a solder glue).
and link up with a wire on the top of the chip.. so looking into that...
also soldering SMD's is such a pain in the ... well you know.. I think the non-heat solder would be easier to use that a soldering iron.. so I will report on how that goes..
There is also a conductive ink pen available from Jcar and Dick Smith that might help. I used it heaps repairing mobile phone boards. You can even solder to it if your careful, just make sure you dont keep the heat on for to long
After doing this mod myself recently, I'm not sure that those who haven't can appreciate just how small the 16510 actually is.... even for a SM. Pin 10 is the end one, and is the most fragile. I seriously doubt that you will be able to chip away at the casing to expose more leg - there's just no room. It's difficult enough - even with glasses AND a good magnifying glass to see anything. Mucking around with individual legs on this chip'd be well-nigh impossible.
This is the photo I took of the wiring coming off mine. I was damn lucky to actually see what the heck I was doing at all. Those wires are single-core wire-wrap, which is very thin indeed.
The only way to get that done properly is with an smd soldering station or pure luck.
The soldering station is more $$$ than the toucam.
So TelescopesAstronomy is your best option as long it doesnt get dearer than the toucam is worth.
