Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Got asked about this one, no video on either internal or external, and no signs of attempting to boot. Googled it a bit and noticed "HD4250 Graphics". Our old friend the RS880M. Told the guy the price for reballing, he agreed, and he brought it in.

I was happy to see that Quanta did the board, and that it's green. I've always found green boards to be nicer to work on than any other color. Better quality solder mask, and they don't discolor when subject to heat (like reballing).

However, upon lifting the chip, it was nasty under there. These have gotta be the smallest pads i've seen for this chipset so far. Along with that oddly placed power trace, this made the board a PITA to clean from the old solder.

I actually thought i damaged a few pads, but i looked closer and they were just "too clean" (all the solder came off). So i went thru with the whole process. Thankfully, all went fine, but i hope i don't see another one of these anytime soon.

[polytek]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

i'm really glad to hear that, good job friend, very nice to get this result i know it's very hard to get it. thank you for posting this,

[sparker1]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

That's one of the motherboards/chips I stuffed up trying to reball. I'm glad someone with experience didn't like it either. Well done........again.

[dycc]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

Which brand of bga machine do you use ???????????

[trebo]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

Congrats, you really know what your doing
with your setup that's brill
read all your informative posts, keep the good work up
one day I will try to do a reball,
thanks to the likes of you

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

That's one of the motherboards/chips I stuffed up trying to reball. I'm glad someone with experience didn't like it either. Well done........again.

Thanks. There's nothing to like about this board, it's ugly. Well, maybe the solder mask. As you can see it didn't get a single scratch. But other than that, it was harder than usual.

Btw, notice that on the unpopulated component pads they did not even add solder anymore. They went to the extent of making a special solder paste stencil for the integrated graphics version, to save on solder... interesting. I know i've seen this before, but i don't recall which board. Either way, it is unusual.

Which brand of bga machine do you use ???????????

It's not really a BGA machine. It's something low cost and low tech that i've cobbled together myself. In a nutshell, it's preheater + hot air rework station + holder for the hot air wand + bga nozzles + temperature measuring equipment.

I thought about purchasing a low-end IR machine like the ACHI IR6000, but i've seen many laptops with chips completely busted by those machines. I know it's "how you use it" but i've read way too many nasty stories about them: uneven heating, inaccurate temperature measurements, and so on. I'm doing fine with my setup, so you know how it goes: if it ain't broken...

[Agent24]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

I thought about purchasing a low-end IR machine like the ACHI IR6000, but i've seen many laptops with chips completely busted by those machines. I know it's "how you use it" but i've read way too many nasty stories about them: uneven heating, inaccurate temperature measurements, and so on. I'm doing fine with my setup, so you know how it goes: if it ain't broken...

Who knows. I suspect it's half from clueless people who think the machine will do all the work for them, and half that it's a low-end machine from China.

They say the bad workman blames the tools but some Chinese gear is absolutely shit. Like a pack of screwdrivers I bought years ago. The tips were so soft they basically stripped themselves upon first use.

[dycc]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

thanks. There's nothing to like about this board, it's ugly. Well, maybe the solder mask. As you can see it didn't get a single scratch. But other than that, it was harder than usual.

Btw, notice that on the unpopulated component pads they did not even add solder anymore. They went to the extent of making a special solder paste stencil for the integrated graphics version, to save on solder... Interesting. I know i've seen this before, but i don't recall which board. Either way, it is unusual.



It's not really a bga machine. It's something low cost and low tech that i've cobbled together myself. In a nutshell, it's preheater + hot air rework station + holder for the hot air wand + bga nozzles + temperature measuring equipment.

I thought about purchasing a low-end ir machine like the achi ir6000, but i've seen many laptops with chips completely busted by those machines. I know it's "how you use it" but i've read way too many nasty stories about them: Uneven heating, inaccurate temperature measurements, and so on. I'm doing fine with my setup, so you know how it goes: If it ain't broken...

good job anyway

[mockingbird]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

Excellent work Th3_uN1Qu3, as always. You're beginning to be the star of the forums.

[highpulse]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

people can laugh of this , but my machine at home its a simply as the:_unique

my wife buy lots of does irons to make the hair liss (and i keep the old one , they achieve around 230 degrees , so i got 4 on bottom fixed on a piece of hardwood , and my upper heat is my HOTair solder station , made a special jig for it can connect to (honton) nozzles , and it works fine to solder unsolder .
and a omega temp reader. does the job , you only need to know how to make a good curve for leaded and unleaded reworks.
like many here sayed a highend machine will do many things , but the high end profissionalism is how to do it , with any tools

this "machine" created with bunch of tolls have a maximum cost of 200 euros (station is 100 euros , woods , nozzles and hair preheaters )

one thing i stop doing is to protect everything around , only the crucial components like crystal and tantalum or electrolitic caps .

good job Th3_uniqu3

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

my wife buy lots of does irons to make the hair liss (and i keep the old one , they achieve around 230 degrees , so i got 4 on bottom fixed on a piece of hardwood

That's clever. I wouldn't have thought of that.

one thing i stop doing is to protect everything around , only the crucial components like crystal and tantalum or electrolitic caps .

I remind myself how important it is to cover the whole board in foil when i throw a scrap board on there without any protection, just to pull chips off. Everything plastic like connectors or LEDs gets toasted.

I have to admit i do run the bottom heat hotter than anyone else i know. When resoldering with leaded solder, at the end of the "profile" the hot air ends up as low as 250C. The bottom heater is doing most of the work. Most likely this is why a burnt BGA is an extremely rare event for me. My chips remain green after rework.

good job Th3_uniqu3

Thanks.

[highpulse]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

yes to keep them green is good having the bottom making all the work , and the upper hot air beeing only the final help

btw forgot to mention the plastic connectors :P but since i've got to much work or in the lab or at home , i cannot spent to much time foiling all boards unfortunetly

[mockingbird]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

Since you're working on double sided boards, am I assuming correctly that the surface tension of the solder is the only thing keeping the underside components from falling off?

If I had the money and intelligence (Which I don't, neither off), I would start an operation similar to yours here. AFAIK, no one does it, and I've already had two customers I've had to turn down for just such a job.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

but since i've got to much work or in the lab or at home , i cannot spent to much time foiling all boards unfortunetly

It barely takes any time at all. Either way, if you manage to balance the heat so that the underside of the board doesn't get cooked, either, more power to you.

I've noticed that blue boards always get discolored. Others less so. Green boards, hardly, if at all. Black ones... Well, they're black to start with.

Since you're working on double sided boards, am I assuming correctly that the surface tension of the solder is the only thing keeping the underside components from falling off?

The board doesn't actually get hot enough for things to fall off the bottom. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to knock on it while it's hot, though.

If I had the money and intelligence (Which I don't, neither off), I would start an operation similar to yours here. AFAIK, no one does it, and I've already had two customers I've had to turn down for just such a job.

I didn't have the money either (otherwise i would have bought a station). Not to say that i've got the money now... And it's more about dexterity than intelligence. Most times, a power fault like a VRM failure takes more time to troubleshoot than doing a reball would.

[ktmmotocross]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

is hot air so good?

i have hand made BGA station, but im VERY comfortable with IR heater, because i must not cover the board. i just using big square of ALfoil with small square for the chip.

i use this heater
http://www.ebay.com/itm/120-120mm-45...3D321505307743

my compadre have some china's HOT air BGA for 2000e, but i have better results then him. Hot air is also not good for reballing, because stencil will bend when apply hot air. with my IR hrater its always great, without problems.

I break some chips when i dont use much preheat, but i rise the temp of preheat and everything is ok. when i have ic like this ATI IGP that are easy to kill, i use my safe method to using just small preheter with some covering of chip and i never have fried chips,

[highpulse]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

IR is a strong method , and altough it need a long time of making profiles for each kind of chip ! and that sucks only for that , alltough you mention a good thing but also that you can do with hor air . making hot to be directionable.
for IR well its simply just put over the place and thats ok , a bit of foiling and its good to go . but hot air , will spread , but if you make a spreader with kapton tape , it will make the chip get hot and spread up the wind to avoid making contact with outher components-

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Reballing Toshiba Satellite L655D

is hot air so good?

I don't know. But i already had the hot air station. It's as simple as that.

Hot air is also not good for reballing, because stencil will bend when apply hot air. with my IR hrater its always great, without problems.

I've had that happen only once, with a stencil for a large Intel chip. Sticking it to the chip using kapton tape fixed that.

I break some chips when i dont use much preheat, but i rise the temp of preheat and everything is ok. when i have ic like this ATI IGP that are easy to kill, i use my safe method to using just small preheter with some covering of chip and i never have fried chips,

I've read everywhere that these chips are easy to kill. I haven't fried ONE of them since i started doing this. I have burned many nvidia chips and 2 or 3 Intel ones, but this never happened with ATI/AMD.