I wired up the 3M clip this afternoon and I successfully programmed a SOIC-8 12F683 chip. Huzzah! The only problem I encountered is the spring on the clip is strong enough to deform the chip's pins, so it won't sit flush on the PCB unless I straighten them out. Has anyone else seen this? Should I just work the clip over and over to reduce the spring tension, or is it just a question of holding the chip just right when closing the clip?

I marked pin1 with a white dot:

Name: photo.JPG Views: 1365 Size: 657.7 KB