Are DIP sockets against overheating worth the cost?

Question

Sockets allow easy replacement of a device and eliminates the risk of damage from overheating during soldering. [Wikipedia]

I personally never (ever) replace these ICs. For programming microcontrollers (as a hobbyist) I use a dedicated pin header. So the only reason for me to use DIP sockets is to prevent overheating.

Now I'm a cheapskate (student) so I would not want to buy any of these sockets if they are not absolutely necessary. However, I find it hard to decide whether I need them.

Given that my DIP-packages cost around €2.50 each, should I protect them with DIP-sockets?

Answer 1

If you are not going to swap / change / reprogram your ICs just solder them. I have never overheated any DIP IC during the soldering. It is not easy to overheat them. Maybe 40 years ago ICs were more sensitive but nowadays it is not the issue,

Answer 2

If you're in a design stage, a socket can turn a real pain in the neck into a momentary problem, allowing you to swap out that microcontroller with, say, a burned out DIO, with a brand new one, in seconds. Otherwise, break out the iron.

Answer 3

If you are skilled in soldering, overheating the DIP package while soldering shouldn't be a problem. Also, the sockets can introduce problems themselves due to bad contact. Just keep the soldering short, below 3 seconds per pin as a rule of thumb.

Sockets are great when you are working on a prototype and there is a real chance of blowing up the IC during testing, e.g. a stepper motor driver or similar.

Answer 4

Breaking the chip due to overheating during soldering should be very rare. However, if you have the chip soldered down and end up breaking it during testing, it is very helpful to know this trick:

Instead of trying to desolder all the pins of the broken IC, just cut them off with pliers and then clean up the holes with the iron.

Answer 5

Good answers here already...

I'll add my two cents worth. ( Though I guess that's a nickel now we ditched the penny in Canada. )

When prototyping the first go around of a board and your confidence level is not that great in the design or PCB, sockets often make debug and rework a lot easier.

With a socket, you have the ability to quickly "lift" a pin. That is, remove the IC from the socket, bend out one or more pins, and put the device back in the socket. That way you can easily isolate sections of the circuit and or feed in test signals without frying something.

It also makes rework to change the design a lot easier. e.g. change logic, add series parts etc. Use the same lifted pin method and fly-wire as need be.

As others have mentioned, you do risk having poorer connections, so it is prudent to buy better than junk-store sockets, but for early design work, they can save you a lot of time.

Once your design and PCB is verified though, drop the sockets for everything other than programmed parts that may change in the future.

I usually keep the first off socketed board as a gold standard in case I need to add features or debug some weird field issue down the road.

Answer 6

I've broken many more ICs trying to pry them from DIP sockets than from heat or ESD damage from soldering directly. Even using a chip extractor can be risky.

That said, in the analog world DIP sockets have been useful for trying out different op-amps for audio applications. You can try one US$10 op-amp, stick in a US$0.50 one, realize they sound the same, and then tsk-tsk yourself for not believing they would.

Answer 7

Using socket packages have some cons and pros. Usually with the cost of integrated circuits rising, it is good general advice to maintain the chip for the next time use. But sockets, most often cheap ones, might find oxidation over time so your electrical connections may be lost. Also the PCB traces would be covered by the socket frame which prevent you from seeing the traces. However, a solution to this is to use DIP terminals, which are available separately without the plastic frame. These not only improve the PCB trace visibility but also thermal management.

So all in all you might find using a DIP socket (or DIP terminals) very useful especially when you're going to make changes to the firmware for many times. Many of integrated circuits are also very sensitive to heat so time for sockets.

Answer 8

In 10 years of working in the microcontroller world, I've never used a socket and never regretted it. The risk of having a bad contact in a socket is real. Old computers are notoriously unreliable because of sockets. On old computers, many times you have to push on every chip to reseat and "clean up" the contacts to the socket.

I would not worry about heat damage from soldering. Chips are designed for reflow ovens where the whole chip gets hot. If you are soldering individual pins, the shock is much less to the chip.

Hint for removal of chips: use EXTRA solder on all the pins and drown the entire chip in solder and solder flux. Then you can easily remove the chip with just a soldering iron. Or chop all the pins off with a knife and remove each pin separately.

A coworker once remarked how robust certain micros were. He was a fan of PICs. In one case, he said that a particular PIC got so hot because of an external short that the solder on the PIC melted and the chip fell off the board. He cleaned it up and reattached it and the PIC still worked.

(That said, my experience with SiLabs 8051s is that they are not that robust)

Answer 9

I Never overheated my ICs and even if I use microcontrollers I just reprogram them with wires just soldered directly to the pins. Also I add pin groups for reprogramming the IC if it is only a home-use PCB. But if you are worried about the overheating just solder one pin and let it for 5 secounds to cool down. So I don't see any reason to use sockets.

Answer 10

The hobby boards (such as Arduino) are totally unsuitable for DIP's. Best to put the DIP into a good socket, and find a way to connect that to the hobby breadboard.