reballing attempt home made

[psxpetey]

Hello fellow psx'ers,

Today im attempting a reball with
hot air and a home made station. Materials im using are:

4foot allthread #6 cut to 3'' lengths x16
1/4 allthread cut to 3'' lengths x4
Appropriate nuts
Tin foil
Plywood
2hot air stations
0.6mm solder balls leaded
Kingbo flux
Rosin flux
Magnifying glass
Solder iron
Vaccum pen

I used the wep station to heat the rsx chip and the jobmate hot air gun to heat the bottom of the station(itll be more clear in the pics).. the wep couldnt get the rsx chip hot enough for a lift so I switched them around after about two minutes I lifted the chip and got a clean lift so, so far so good more updates to. come.

Who likes my home made heating station?:P also should I only reball the GPU? or should i do the CPU as well?

[psxpetey]

well I have finally succeeded it took some practice and 1 system died in the process (40gb) but who cares about 40gb fats they are basically just fat slims lol plus I got to games out of the systems 1 was call of duty and the other was battlefield.

anyways it took some time to get this right but here was my process of learning:

first I took a system I knew was dead that some dick on ebay screwed me over on and used the gpu for practice removing the solder and watnot.
after about ten tries I had it down to a science and could reball no problem at all so I reballed 3 gpu's 1 was the 60gb dead system the other was the 40gb I ruined when my old solder gun died and I tried to use a 120w iron on the board hahah.

after a while i bought another 60gb but it worked so I havent done anything to it, (gonna downgrade). then I bought another 60gb which had never been opened and the blu ray still worked (call of duty was inside!!) so i removed the gpu with my little homemade contraption. getting the gpu off is much easier than putting it back on also when your removing the solder from the ps3 board keep the heat on or otherwise you will most likely lift pads, the boards are much more fragile than the GPU itself.

During reattach attempt one I left the heat spreader off and put fulx on the board. This did not work because the gpu did not sink down when I got the temp up it just floated on the solder. maybe I didnt get the bottom heater hot enough? I reflowed it a couple of times but nothing worked.

The next day I was watching reballs on youtube and one dude recorded in high def super close to the board and I realized the GPU had to sink down really close to the board (he left the heat spreader on. this time I taped up the gpu and all surround components so that nothing would float around. (tape was thermal resistive). I got my bottom heater up to about 155degC and applied topical heat. after the board was about 150 degrees I started applying major heat to the gpu after about 3 minutes the solder liquified (I had the heat spreader on top loosely so that it would put weight on the gpu) and VOILA it sunk down almost flush with the board. I let it cool for about an hour and then tested it and it booted up just fine.

When I applied my GPU to the board it had a slight rock in it and didnt sit flush on the board it was only a small rock so in the end it didnt matter. after all that I wish I had of had a reballing station from scotle or achi or something. would have taken ALOT less time to do this plus they are IR stations and they do not blow all of the tiny components on the board off lol.

Maybe ill do a video of how to make and use this home made station if people like it the station without the heat cost like 5 bucks. the red and black heat gun was 14$ and the heat station was 60$ off ebay. so for 80$ bucks you can have a reballing station!!

[psxpetey]

almost 500 views and 0 replies weird

[pinkfloydviste]

@psxpetey

this is awesome. I have tried this before, but all I managed to do was break stuff. I've lifted the gpu on a few 360's. I had a hard time getting the solder balls in the right places, and when I did, I had a hard time getting it to re-connect to the board. I think...my issue was not having consistent enough temperatures, especially on the bottom.

The main thing I'm lacking is a good ir heater for the bottom (I was just using a cheap griddle that was a wedding present...lol) but I do already have every single thing on your list except the proper nuts and bolts. I think this has inspired me to try again. I have a whole box of xbox 360 junk boards to practice on, so I'll have to give this a shot.

How many systems have you fixed so far?

[psxpetey]

haha didnt think id get any replies.

Reflows ive done LOADS like 200 and never had anyone come back and numerous other fixes along the way. i just started getting into reballs and i picked up a couple of systems really cheap so far ive fixed 2 without any problems the first one I had to redo because the GPU didnt sink down but laying a spare heatspreader on top got the job done. if you lay a heatspreader on top it will give the chip enough weight to make it sink down when the balls melt.


just make sure you tape everything off around the chip that you think might blow away. and make sure the bottom heater gets the board up to 150degC then apply topical heat until the chip melts and sinks down. I had my bottom heater going for about ten mins until the board got up to 150. just make sure you practice on dead systems and your board is completely level.

im trying to find a couple more cheap systems to reball im very confident doing it now tho its almost easy. I do it over 2-3 days when i started so I didnt rush and mess up. Next one i do ill post a video for ya.

[psxpetey]

@psxpetey

this is awesome. I have tried this before, but all I managed to do was break stuff. I've lifted the gpu on a few 360's. I had a hard time getting the solder balls in the right places, and when I did, I had a hard time getting it to re-connect to the board. I think...my issue was not having consistent enough temperatures, especially on the bottom.

The main thing I'm lacking is a good ir heater for the bottom (I was just using a cheap griddle that was a wedding present...lol) but I do already have every single thing on your list except the proper nuts and bolts. I think this has inspired me to try again. I have a whole box of xbox 360 junk boards to practice on, so I'll have to give this a shot.

How many systems have you fixed so far?

patience and time are defintely key I enjoyed doing it quite a bit plus SUPER cheap haha

[pinkfloydviste]

Are you using the direct heat stencils? They seemed a bit better to me.

Are you able to keep the temperature fairly consistent with this setup?

Where are you keeping your thermometer lead, on top of the board??

[Staylecrate]

I was thinking about trying something similar. I wanted to stencil out the contacts to the CPU/GPU and use either a solid wire like paper clip or a D maybe G guitar string strength for the contacts rest on and basically have the wires join up under a thin piece of plywood, all the underside wires would be joined so when I figured out a way to convert the heat (either from an solder iron or heat gun) all the wires that were joined would be heated together and the wires would reflect the stencil I made from the solder on the board. I don't know if I am explaining myself good or not. I haven't been able to try because I only have a FAT and a slim. The FAT will only turn on for 10-30 seconds and I have had mixed replies on what and where to remove what to get to the faulty sensor. So until I know for sure where the sensor is that causes the fan to go into super-mode and then causes the system to beep then shut off I am not going to bother.
This is a really cool attempt. Patience probably prevailed over anything else with something like this rather than crossing your fingers and hoping you got everything in the right spot. Even when you have to tear it apart halfway when you find something wrong to get it perfect, that usually happens to me anyway . Pretty cool!

[psxpetey]

Are you using the direct heat stencils? They seemed a bit better to me.

Are you able to keep the temperature fairly consistent with this setup?

Where are you keeping your thermometer lead, on top of the board??

Im not a fan of direct heat stencils once you learn the technique for doing without its actually not very hard. consistent? yes , i turn on the bottom heater and wait till the board gets to 150 degC (I touch the sensor on different spots on top of the board) once it comes up to 150 I keep the thermometer as close as I can to the gpu and then start applying heat to the gpu until it reaches melting and it plops down into place

[psxpetey]

I was thinking about trying something similar. I wanted to stencil out the contacts to the CPU/GPU and use either a solid wire like paper clip or a D maybe G guitar string strength for the contacts rest on and basically have the wires join up under a thin piece of plywood, all the underside wires would be joined so when I figured out a way to convert the heat (either from an solder iron or heat gun) all the wires that were joined would be heated together and the wires would reflect the stencil I made from the solder on the board. I don't know if I am explaining myself good or not. I haven't been able to try because I only have a FAT and a slim. The FAT will only turn on for 10-30 seconds and I have had mixed replies on what and where to remove what to get to the faulty sensor. So until I know for sure where the sensor is that causes the fan to go into super-mode and then causes the system to beep then shut off I am not going to bother.
This is a really cool attempt. Patience probably prevailed over anything else with something like this rather than crossing your fingers and hoping you got everything in the right spot. Even when you have to tear it apart halfway when you find something wrong to get it perfect, that usually happens to me anyway . Pretty cool!

its possible you may have killed the heat sensor from reflows. as for exactly what you have to do to turn it off ill look it up for you but be prepared to get something to replace it like a potentiometer. I am super careful calculating person I always check recheck and check again. plus before I started I practiced doing this on two dead systems a scammer on ebay sent me. (All that practice got every bit of rush syndrome out of me haha).

did you replace the paste under the heatspreaders? if hot air is not really coming out that is most likely the problem. A heatspreader will heat up to where you cant touch it in 10-15 seconds when the paste underneath is good. If the paste is bad then it wont heat up at all but under the heatspreader the rsx will be screaming hot.

That Ps3 that I reflowed in the picture I bought of a guy who couldnt fathom why It died, he said he kept it clean, when I opened it I died laughing there was enough dust in there to kill an entire city of asthmatics or start several dust bunny world wars, the station got so hot before it YLOD that the thermal paste bubbled and shot all over the entire board.