How to remove the chips from a GBA cartridge?

[spartanclone]

Hello,

I'm working on some home-brew GBA games and I need GBA cartridges. What tools would I need to remove the game chip from a GBA cartridge to insert it into another cartridge? Also, where can I purchase these tools and is it simple to remove the game chip from an official GBA cartridge?

Thank you for the help!

[jb143]

More than likely you're going to be dealing with surface mount chips that have pins half a millimeter apart. The best way to remove them is going to be a surface mount hot air desoldering station(it basically just blows really hot air). Anything else will be a lot more work and will probably mess up the board in the process. Soldering a new chip in will be pretty hard as well unless you're really skilled at soldereing, then it will just be very time consuming. Usually the pads are pre-coated in solder and the chips are glued in place by a machine and soldered in place in a reflow oven. I've seen people use toaster ovens for home brew stuff though. Google "homemade reflow oven" and you'll find quite a few links.

Also, here's a site with GBA projects that may be of interest to you...
http://www.reinerziegler.de/GBA/gba.htm