Yeah, i said so. But since i've got access to a bunch of free (and otherwise completely useless) laptop mainboards, thought i'd at least try my hand.
I've already ordered a BGA holder, and will check which stencils and ball diameters i need and order those too.
I already had a hot air station, and i managed to cobble together a bottom heater as well. I'll let your imagination go wild on this one, i'll tell you what it is later. All i can say is that with $5 worth of parts and an item that was lying around the room, sometimes used as a load resistor, i managed to build an usable bottom heater with power control. Not directly temp controlled yet, but till the other bits and bobs are gonna arrive from China... plenty of time.
Had some (really) dead boards to practice on. Results are encouraging. I used just the bottom heater tonight. I know you're not supposed to do that, but i just wanted to see whether the power is enough. It is.
I broke 2 nvidia card PCBs where the GPU got stuck in one corner, but i was actually trying to break them, and i'd already stripped most other parts from the cards anyway. But, i managed to get a completely clean lift of an Intel southbridge off a laptop board, at 225C. Cleaned all the solder from the chip and it's looking mint. Didn't bother to clean the board as well, but there's no lifted pads.
Tomorrow i'll do it properly and use the hot air gun on the top as well, and we shall see what happens.
I've already ordered a BGA holder, and will check which stencils and ball diameters i need and order those too.
I already had a hot air station, and i managed to cobble together a bottom heater as well. I'll let your imagination go wild on this one, i'll tell you what it is later. All i can say is that with $5 worth of parts and an item that was lying around the room, sometimes used as a load resistor, i managed to build an usable bottom heater with power control. Not directly temp controlled yet, but till the other bits and bobs are gonna arrive from China... plenty of time.
Had some (really) dead boards to practice on. Results are encouraging. I used just the bottom heater tonight. I know you're not supposed to do that, but i just wanted to see whether the power is enough. It is.
I broke 2 nvidia card PCBs where the GPU got stuck in one corner, but i was actually trying to break them, and i'd already stripped most other parts from the cards anyway. But, i managed to get a completely clean lift of an Intel southbridge off a laptop board, at 225C. Cleaned all the solder from the chip and it's looking mint. Didn't bother to clean the board as well, but there's no lifted pads.
Tomorrow i'll do it properly and use the hot air gun on the top as well, and we shall see what happens.
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