Repairing modern electronics - BGA rework, anyone?

[RogerS]

.....but all consumer products now have to be lead free.

It's to stop children poisoning themselves when they eat your TV.

 

[Eric The Viking]

But I WANT to poison them when they eat my TV!

 

[No skills]

Being thick I had to google BGA #-o

My 6 year old PS3 died on new years night, apparently it was a classic YLOD failure. After viewing a few youtube videos I wrote off any repair attempt as a waste of time and spent the week sulking But on sunday I had a change of heart and gave it ago, took the PS3 apart and followed one of the more 'sensible' (??) videos - warmed up the motherboard both sides with a heatgun and then warmed up both the offending processors - left to cool and then rebuild.
As the board actually warped slightly when I was heating it I didn't hold out much hope, but lo and behold I now have a working playstation again and have used it for a few hours. How long the repair works for I don't know - maybe 5 more minutes or a month or two, who knows.
I hate to say it but it actually runs a bit quieter now that what it did before it died (fans running slower).

One video I saw had the poster wrapping the board in foil apart from the processors and 'cooking' it in an oven

Not much use to you but I had to share with somebody

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's a common fault with them I believe. I did a bit of research (watched some YouTube videos!) and most of the examples seemed to be either laptop or Playstation graphics processors.

If we were still allowed leaded solder all this sort of thing would be a lot more reliable. I bought up quit a lot of decent stock around the time it was banned, and it's helped on quite a few occasions. I note that you can easily buy leaded solder balls for BGA rework, presumably as it's more likely to succeed.

Aren't bureaucrats wonderful?

E.

 

[No skills]

I find the EU ones are the best (homer)

 

[Sheffield Tony]

If we were still allowed leaded solder all this sort of thing would be a lot more reliable. I bought up quit a lot of decent stock around the time it was banned, and it's helped on quite a few occasions. I note that you can easily buy leaded solder balls for BGA rework, presumably as it's more likely to succeed.
E.

You can still very easily buy 60/40 leaded solder; Farnell have a wide choice. And you can still use it - you are just not allowed to bring a product to market which uses it. For a prototype, repair, DIY job - use what you will.

Doesn't help for re-flowing the solder already on a BGA though. I do seem to remember that Sony had issues with the PS3 and dodgy solder jobs.

 

[Eric The Viking]

You can still very easily buy 60/40 leaded solder; Farnell have a wide choice. And you can still use it - you are just not allowed to bring a product to market which uses it. For a prototype, repair, DIY job - use what you will.

Doesn't help for re-flowing the solder already on a BGA though. I do seem to remember that Sony had issues with the PS3 and dodgy solder jobs.

I'm glad to hear that. I have probably a lifetime of 60:40 stock of various gauges and brands (the Russian stuff Maplin used to sell is evil and eats copper tips but solders better than Ersin IMHO).

I intend to try to re-flow our TV's rasterizer chip, just by carefully cooking it with a heat gun (and thermocouples!). If it doesn't work the TV is probably scrap anyway, as it's way too thirsty (over 300W), and also needs the colorimetry re-aligning. Thermal cycling is probably what caused the problems. The chip which I think is failing is right above the PSU and gets hammered thermally. I'm all for repair instead of replacement, but I wish I'd never bought this, and it's made me think twice about both Toshiba (brand) and Samsung (innards) for the future.

E.

 

[Racers]

Hi Eric

I have one of these you can borrow if you want to http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/heat-guns/4453436/ it might do the trick.

Pete

 

[Eric The Viking]

It's a very kind thought Pete, but I'm going to try my paint stripper first and see how that goes.

The dual-channel thermometer hasn't turned up yet, so I don't think it'll be this week end. I'm not going to risk it unless I can keep a close eye on the temperatures.