Hi guys,

A couple of days ago I was pulling out my atmega168 chip to make room for my 2 328s and I pulled too hard on one side of the 168 and I accedantly snapped the PB1 pin off. Heres a photo. Sorry if its looks a little blury up close.

So what should I do to repair it? I was thinking of putting it into a socket. Do you think soldering a piece of wire to it might damage the mcu?

-Dan

You could solder a wire to it, just try to use lower temp of about maybe around 360 degress celcius. Just dont keep pin in contact with soldering iron for too long. It will be fine though. Good Luck :)

Alright thanks dgikuljot,

I'll give that a try. I also might order another breadboard and some ic sockets so I wont have to worry about that problem again.\

-Dan

And order one of these:

Dan, I have been using 28 pin ZIF sockets.

The ones I got have relatively speaking short pins so they are not very stable in/on the breadboard.

They would be fine soldered to a pcb.

There was a little protuberance on both ends of the bottom of the socket that once removed helps the socket sit better on the breadboard.

Without the protuberance the zif sockets work fine. But I still press on them to make sure they are seated.

I often switch between an Atmega168 and Atmega328 so I am pulling mcus often.

I never broke a pin but I have certainly bent a lot and could not figure out why things no longer worked untill I examine the mcu and see the bent/flattened pin..

Ralph