Yesterday my Alien DAC went Alien Dead.....
i was experimenting with something for my school project and
accidentally i misconnected the alien dac output and i burned it!
now the project went back...but who cares about the project??? i lost my precious dac!!!
these days i'm going to start the "aLiEn DaC ReSuRrEcTiOn PrOcEdUrE"
I would like we all call it that way if it is not copyrighted!
Resurrection Guide:
If you dac is totally dead like mine and the problem is the IC do the following...take a very sharp knife (knifes with very small teeth are preferable)
remove the crystal and the near capacitors, put the knife to the pins as close
as you can to the plastic package of the IC and start carefully cutting the pins! after cutting the one side do the same to the other (or somehow use your soldering iron to remove the other side), after you finish put flux to the surface and
gently try to remove the leftover pins from the pads and the excess solder..Hopefully all pads stay intact! i lost only one pad...pad 12 which it's not connected anywhere...
The following photos shows my alien dac after removing the IC...
sorry for the quality...it's from my mobile phone.
Things are not as worse as they look like pads are very clear and and
you can solder the IC like before...(and maybe better)
Achtung! - Attention!
Special care is needed when you cut the IC, because you can easily drift out pins and pads
by cutting them careless! i'm not responsible if you try and fail with the prescribed way
and it is preferable to try it ONLY if you think that your board is for the garbage can.
anyway! wish me luck!