Reballing

[Boomtown]

Hey guys, figured I'd say hi and tell you what SGTCOFFEE and I are up to. This is more my idea but... We have a few red ringed xbox's that we fixed with a heat gun and are now failing. Now I'm practicing with said heat gun at taking old BGA chips off of some ps2's to get a feel for it before deciding if we might be able to do it... Messed up one chip (pulled the traces off) because I didn't have something to watch the temp with. Next try I used a Candy Thermometer to monitor temp and pulled the last two chips just fine. We may try this sometime in the near future purchasing a chassis and stencil for the 360 chips. wish us luck!

[HaGGardSmurf]

Damn man you guys gotta keep us updated, I've been seriously thinking about doing a couple reball's, but there is no good resources for doing reballing on a 360.

It's pretty straight forward, but I'd be much better to be able to talk and experiment with other's doing the same thing

[Boomtown]

Alright, I'm going to take a lot of picture's once I order the reball die. So far I've freaked coffee out showing him proof of concept with the ps2 board, I've almost desoldered the entire thing now. From the experience I have so far you defiantly want something to monitor the chip for heat (I am lightly resting my candy thermometer on it, which goes to 200 degrees C). From what we see the best temp to pull the chips off at is about 200C, otherwise it looks almost like I pulled the pads off. I will post a pic of the PS2 chips. I have on that is toast, Pulled it off at about 375F\190C and can clearly see the chip pads.

The method I'm using is let the heat gun cool, hold thermometer on chip, turn heat gun on and hold it about an inch from the chip. Takes about 5 minutes to get it to 400F\205C then I back the heat gun off (if i don't back off it passes the temp I'm looking for) and make it hover at 400 for about 30 seconds, then Im using a flat head screw driver (yea i know scary thought...) At least until i find a vacuum pen or make something from a food vacuum sealer. Let me go find one of my other PS2 boards I have laying around and I'll post it. My dad (SGTCOFFEE) is kinda on the edge about reflowing the chips down and I have a vague idea of how Ill do it. Thinking use our cooking griddle and wrap the board in aluminum foil other than under the chip and over it and watch for it to sink. If we succeed hope it helps you guys out!


WARNING TO ALL READING!!!!!!
This is a TEST and is not intended to be followed as a guide, IF YOU FOLLOW THIS AS A GUIDE AND A SURE THING I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE!! AGAIN THIS IS A TEST!!!

[technoe]

Ok FIRST! You should never attempt this with a heat gun!!! In order to do a proper re-balling you need a pre-heater for the board, then a very specific heat source with proper temp control. If you decide to just start throwing heat at the board you could end up with some very nasty pop-corning if the board is flexed even in the slightest degree. My setup is as follows,
Aoyue 853A Quart Infrared Preheating Station
Aoyue 2702A+ SMD Profesional Repair & Rework Station
Custom hot air stand

The stand I made from a couple of two by fours and some adjustable distance clamps to move the hot air gun closer and further from the area I want to heat up. The preheating station came with a suction tool to lift the cpu and gpu off. Then there's the heat formula, there are different methods depending on who you talk to but typically you'll start off @ 170C for 30s then:
210C @ 30s
250C @ 30s
300C @ 30s
350C @ 50s

then you may remove the chip. Once the chip is off you will have to have a reballing map for the cpu/gpu and solder paste! Then you may very carefully clean up the "socket" on the board. Once you have the solder in place on the cpu/gpu you may place it back on the board and start the solder formula over. Just make sure that you preheat the board first!

[Boomtown]

Well as I stated this is a TEST, Like most people I do not have $1,000+ to do it with a reball station. This is the stencil I will be picking up, local shop has one they will sell me. http://cgi.ebay.com/XBOX360-CPU-GPU-XSB ... 4154101d06" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Back to the testing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkPGS-JJIoA This is the PS2 test, I have a video of cleaning off the Mobo points, will get it up later.


Technoe I appreciate your concern. I have many xbox 360s THAT ARE MINE! Not anyone else. Two of my red rings have no drive so its of little consequence as to if it messes up or not. THIS IS A TRIAL, FOR THE SAKE OF HAVING SOMETHING TO DO! From what I understand most pop corning occurs because of having cleaning solutions such as goo gone soaked into your chip. As long as your clean it thoroughly with alcohol to the point it dries instantly when you apply it. You considerably lower the chance of pop-corning. The alcohol sucks out a majority of what has soaked into the chip. Your concern is duly noted. Also, the Aoyue is basically a heat gun, with a temperature control. By paying attention to a thermometer I can achieve the same effect.

By definition popcorning is:Catastrophic loss of BGA package due to moisture within the package converting to steam from applied heat and rupturing the package.

[technoe]

Well good luck man. And what I consider pop-corning is when the board is heated up so much so fast that other small components pop up completely pop up off the board! I've seen it happen a handful of times.

[HaGGardSmurf]

Well good luck man. And what I consider pop-corning is when the board is heated up so much so fast that other small components pop up completely pop up off the board! I've seen it happen a handful of times.

I've also seen it, hell ive seen it done. A good friend of mine needed to fix his xbox and wanted to learn how, so I brought him over showed him how to disassemble the box clean the chips, flux, set the board on a griddle preheated it, then explained how to use the heatgun to heat the chip. He had the gun on high, when it should have been on low next thing I knew the chip made a bit of a poping sound, and it looked as though the top layer of the chip had delaminated, and there were air bubbles in it. (The board ended up working after a good reflow)

@Boomtown, you should see if you can buy a suction pen, you can find them on ebay for a couple dollar's they supposedly provide enough of a vacuum to lift the chip, but the vacuum is not strong enough to lift the chip until all the solder has melted, good way to make sure you dont pull any pad's off.

You may also want to buy a better thermometer, one similar to those included in a rework station, somewhat like this that way you can see exactly what temp your at, and can move your heatgun closer/farther away accordingly. (To gradually heat up the chip) You could also buy an IR thermometer, but it'd be a bit of a task to hold it in one hand to monitor temp's and the heatgun in the other.

Like technoe said you should also go a bit slower with the heating, on the 360 you can almost guarantee the chip will pop-corn heating it that fast. Good work so far though man!