Repair BGA Machine

[caspian]

Dear Technicians,
High-quality BGA machines are expensive. They may degrade or fail after some period of time. Now the questions are:
1. What kinds of such BGA machines are repairable?
2. What parts of such a BGA machine are repairable by laptop technician?
3. What parts of such a BGA machine do not worth repairing even by machine manufacturer?

[diif]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

Any machine has the ability to fail and be repaired.
I guess the heaters will age and need repacking at some time maybe. Or adjust the profile until it's to far out of spec.

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

BGA machine is the main cost for a Laptop repair shop. It would be great if Laptop technician knows how to repair his/her own BGA machine.
I heard home-made BGA machines and cheap BGA machines may burn the chip. So we have the only option of an expensive BGA machine.
I am a computer hardware technician and do not know about PID controllers and analog electronics.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

BGA machine is the main cost for a Laptop repair shop.

You know about Louis Rossman?
He's saying you are wrong.
And a BGA Repair Machine is the last thing you need.

And be honest, for what do you want/need one?!
To replace Chips you can't get!!
Or are too expensive anyway - like CPU. And they are so expensive that you can easily replace the Motherboard.

Buttom Line:
The main tool is your brain and a good Soldering Iron and Hot Air station.
Also some Multimeters and a Powersupply. That's most of what you need.

If you need to replace a BGA Chip its mostly beyond economical repair...

And just think about how long it takes you to replace a big BGA Chip like Chipset or Graphics card. An Hour?? 30min??
And if we are talking about hourly cost of 50€/h is it really worth it?
Especially if we are talking about an i7 CPU for 500$ or more...

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

I think we should find a way to make BGA chip replacement economical. But I do not know how.

[diif]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

It takes less than an hour to strip, reball/replace a chip and assemble the motherboard.
Makes it economical on motherboards over £100 IMO.
£500 for a BGA rework station is not expensive and many people make their own.
It's just a bottom heater and hot air/IR at the top and a way of controlling them.

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

I heard home-made BGA machines and cheap BGA machines produce uneven heat to the chip and cause some damage to the chip. This damage is not detected at first. After a few months, the chip may become faulty.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

I built one of these bga rework machines, I used the same components of the best brands and I have been using it for years without problem.
The bga are very sensitive at the top temp of the profile, if you don't use a good thermocouple (omega is one of the best brands) or use a wrong profile the solder process fail for many reasons.

[dellxps15]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

saying that bga rework is useless just because luiss sayd that is no sense.

1) he was so lazy to even not reballing the chip with leaded, and resolder it with lead free and not proper flux application (according to some video ' ve seen)
2) wich suppliers he got bga chip from ?

i rework from years and when a chip is good, it will last years without any problem.

i reworked also their own bga and working fine from more then 3 years.


problem on bad bga rework are:

1) good profile not too fast ... process need at least 6 minutes on air rework and 6-8 on infrared, plus depend if we are in winter time or summer time

2) take care of new bga, reball with lead free balls using low temperature and more time

3) good flux and proper amount. good flux make whole zone temperature equal... it lower the temperature of working area, but make it more equal.

4) proper pads cleaning with good solder wick and proper flux amount

5) try not to use ultrasonig on bga for cleaning, and wait a bit after reballed before cleaning it and resolder it.

6)get lots of experience

7) check why bga has failed; dust, bad heatsink proportion respect bga heat, overcurrent, bga dead because of something else.

if u do a proper rework and have skill to not have a good bga rework, but keep in mind that things, u can make a rework also with cheper bga rework machine.

there are company that their work is get bad bga for reuse. they sacrifice pcb, heating it only from the bottom for getting a good bga chip. they also reball it using laser that melts only balls and dont heat bga. so a used bga can be good as new, if they get it out of pcb in the proper way.

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

It seems most laptop technicians (such as me) are computer technicians who do not have enough Electronics knowledge. They only know basic components such as resistors, capacitors, and some ICs. Thus, I do not know much about the parts used in making a BGA machine, such as PID controllers and Triac and Sensors.

It would be great if a laptop technician knows how to repair his/her own BGA machine. for example, if a part in the machine gets faulty, the laptop technician should be able to detect it. the part should be a standard part available in the market so that the laptop technician can buy it and replace it.

The idea of Laser-based BGA machine seems great, but I do not know how well they are in BGA rework.

Now, which one do you recommend : a home-made BGA machine, or a cheap BGA machine, or an expensive BGA machine such as ZM-R5860C ?

[dellxps15]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

i have a full ir bga rework, and the pcb is full of 3 pin transistor... maybe 30 or more, one bigger chip and that's all. dont know if repairing it will be easy...

for bga machine, ofcourse big price = bigger quality and features.

bigger price also means bigger heat, plus some bga around 5000 ollars offer also an auto allignment for bga place on pcb. that is very useful if no marks on pcb such as macbook.

home made or already done machine ? well depends...

on already made bga rework, u can focus only in make a good profile...

on home made, u have to assembly, find some tutorial on google, make the chassis, fan placement, mainboard (arduino or others) that control pid and so on. then u can focus on profiles...

how much time u have for it ?

edit: also when try to make some rework... u can try with non working board, but in that case who know if u have done the work right ?

so first u have to practice in desolder and solder bga, reballing too and see if resolder is done properly ( not bend bga or pcb balls as it can solder more one side and less the other).

after that u have to practice on working laptop and see if they work too after rework.... and thatcan be a lot of money waste...

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

It seems most laptop technicians (such as me) are computer technicians who do not have enough Electronics knowledge. They only know basic components such as resistors, capacitors, and some ICs. Thus, I do not know much about the parts used in making a BGA machine, such as PID controllers and Triac and Sensors.

It would be great if a laptop technician knows how to repair his/her own BGA machine. for example, if a part in the machine gets faulty, the laptop technician should be able to detect it. the part should be a standard part available in the market so that the laptop technician can buy it and replace it.

The idea of Laser-based BGA machine seems great, but I do not know how well they are in BGA rework.

Now, which one do you recommend : a home-made BGA machine, or a cheap BGA machine, or an expensive BGA machine such as ZM-R5860C ?

I think that a laptop technician should have a full electronic knowledge because otherwise only simple problems are solved.
A welding machine is very simple, it is made of a few pieces and a technician should have no trouble understanding its operation.
If you do not know how it works you will probably have a lot of problems in using it especially on low-cost machines that need to be slightly modified.
I do not mean that you must know the concepts of physics, such as infrared penetrate into different materials, black body theory, etc.
Probably the only soldering machine is not enough, you need a good stereoscope (not usb digital) and quality products, stencils, flux, etc.
(instead of triacs, digital relays are used; one for the top heater and second for the bottom heater in the simplest configuration)

I preferred to build my welding machine not to save money but because those that cost around 1000 - 3000 eur as jovy re8500, achi, etc had constructive problems because they are built to be used in different situations. I spent about 1000 EUR and I would only change it for an automatic soldering machine that costs over 10,000 euros.

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

thanks a lot.
A computer hardware technician only knows digital components of Electronics and has a digital view of Electronics. For example, they know AND/OR gates, digital ICs, low-voltage Mosfets, voltage dividers, bulk converters, digital power circuits, and other digital circuits. They do not know about triacs and relays which are analog components. They do not know about analog power circuits. They do not know about electronics control systems such as heater controllers.
That is why computer technicians always need electronics technicians. Probably, electronics technicians need computer technicians in software problems.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

I was talking about motherboard repairs (laptop, desktop, etc) at the chip level and consumer electronics (ups, routers, drone, etc) as you know on a motherboard there are not only digital components, for example mosfet and transistor do not work in digital and also resistors and capacitors ...... A PID works in digital as well as a relay in the rework machine. If you know digital well, then you surely know how to program a micro like a pic or an atmega328.
Personally, after I have repaired a laptop, I install the operating system and drivers only not software engineering, hacking, etc

[caspian]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

What kinds of BGA machines use standard parts which are available in the market for part replacement?

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

Pretty much all of them use fairly standard parts. I have seen both IR plates of all shapes and sizes and heaters for the machines that use hot air. On most BGA stations under $1000 you will also find the same type of programmable PID controllers. For the more expensive machines with touchscreen control, if you noticed, it almost always says "MCGS" on it - that is the manufacturer name, and apparently a lot of Chinese industrial equipment uses the same screen so you won't have a problem getting that, either.

So i am pretty sure that spare parts would not be your concern. Either way, even on cheap machines, there are rarely actual component failures, it's mostly wiring and/or terminal blocks which tend to fail, and those can easily be replaced with parts from the local hardware store.

[jasko_jacker]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

this is the reason why I preferred to build the rework machine instead of buying it, the first picture shows the profile of my machine, the second of a commercial machine (achi ir6500 ?)

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

It is very well known that the IR6000 and 6500 and all variations use really poor quality plates for the top heater (except the IR-Pro-SC which is better). A very popular modification is fitting an Elstein plate for the top heater.

The IR6000 is very cheap now but i would not waste money on it, it is not adequate for today's sensitive chips.

[Agent24]

Re: Repair BGA Machine

Another question I would ask - did the people with failed BGA rework jobs preheat the board and BGA to remove moisture?

Many chips nowadays (and the PCB to an extent) are moisture-sensitive. If you do not bake the board\IC according to manufacturer specifications, to remove the moisture, you can cause damage when you do the rework.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moistu...sitivity_level