[sdiy] Reflow revisited and a bit OT, sorry

[Travis Shire]

Those console games use a Ball Grid Array system for the large chips. 
There's a "right" way to rework boards with BGA that involves a special flux 
and temperture regulated reflow oven that can get to the correct temperture 
for lead free solder. Its not something I'd want to do without the right 
equipment unless its just for experimentation on something that was headed 
for the trash anyway. A friend of mine has a shop that does a *lot* of those 
console repairs and he's invested a ton into the gear to make it happen. 
And....its a semi permanent fix. There *will* be more problems down the 
road.
http://jdelectronicsinc.com/index.htm

So....I wouldn't expect great reliability after baking them in a regular 
oven. BGA is fiddly enough before it starts getting stressed from heat and 
flex.



> David Ingebretsen wrote: "He has a broken X-Box, presumably with the 
> standard flaky solder joint problems. While the X-Box is clearly off 
> topic, the desire to reflow the PCB is not."
>
> My son and I recently repaired his XBox 360, which was displaying the "red 
> ring of death." We started by replacing the X-clamps that hold the heat 
> sinks to the tops of the CPU and GPU* (I highly recommend this step, by 
> the way--it means that you can adjust the heat sink tension later without 
> having to completely tear down the XBox), then we baked the board in a 
> standard electric oven for 3 hours at ~170 degrees F.
>
> This worked perfectly--the machine has been running (non-stop, as far as I 
> can tell) for months since the repair. We're planning to fix another later 
> this week--as it turns out, several of his friends have the same problem.
>
> So...no "weird oven" required, as far as I can tell.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ole
>
> * You will laugh when you see this arrangement.
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