BGA Rework Reflowing Reballing for Absolute Beginners - Tutorial Guide Part 1

This is a new series looking at BGA Rework, Reflow and Reballing. It's primarily aimed at beginners who have never done this before, or those who have tried and failed to do it successfully . In part one we are going to discuss what reflowing and reballing actually mean, dispel a few myths and misinformation and then start by learning to desolder some small BGA chips (GPU RAM) and clean the PCB and Chip ready for reballing using basic equipment.
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Richard

[@Ghost572]

Finally I have a reason for why people swurl their hot air guns around, I was thinking it was just pointless since the whole point is to get heat onto the chip, but heating the area is a good/valid point.

[@maffysdad]

Looking forward to part 2 of this one... Just so interesting...

[@nevergoingtoupload]

Thank you for the video and your channel. Your channel was one of many that inspired me to pick up the soldering iron again and I am enjoying it. I am struggling though to get the memory chips down again after reballing and so I am waiting with interest to see your technique. The first TV's I repaired had valves in so it has changed a bit 😄

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Mark and Catherine C Yeah soldering them down again is also the hard bit - mostly because of getting enough heat transfer to the balls to do it The first TVs I repaired were also valve ones - I took my C&G in TV Radio and Electronics repair in the early 80s so we had to learn valve and semiconductor circuits. I actually consider myself luck to be formally trained in both 🙂

[@1pcfred]

I came here to learn how to be a baller.

[@humbleyourego6053]

😂😂😂😂

[@waCkyazn]

Just found your channel its a great channel as I'm new to this type of repair and would like to learn more! thanks for your knowledge and sharing them

[@techracoon7180]

These are some great tips, wish I have watched this video first and then attempt the fix. Thank you for always delivering such a good content.🎉

[@Umski]

Thanks for the tips - been putting off replacing a medium sized BGA IC on an AV receiver that blew its lid from a rogue HDMI input ages ago - I’ve been soldering for 30+ years but never braved a hot air station (yet!) 😂

[@justalilred]

thank god for this video thank you for actually explaining

[@xyzconceptsYT]

Well done, methodical approach for beginners. Remember to practice on unimportant stuff if it works again you are winning. 😉 #righttorepair

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Exactly this ^^^

[@willthecat3861]

agreed! ... but will they do it... sadly... no they won't.

[@Lightrunner.]

Hi, nice video. Reflow or desolder any bga is easyer with a preheater(i have the same🤗) Importen is to learn to take time for heating the pcb carefully. Otherwise bubbles will form on the pcb or bga I didn't have to learn that once😵‍💫. Painfully (rip pcb+bga 😢) As well the right tools are essential. A trick to save the soldier balls. Both, the pcb and the bga to tin with low melted lead. Voila👍 Who is the Part two of the video😳😎?

[@MrPnew1]

I am glad that you said that "reflowing" the GPU in graphics cards like this is a myth. Only butchers do that crap. Good, informative video thanks.

[@TristanVash38]

19:24 the 5 seconds before this, EXCELLENT TIP!

[@RetroUpgrade]

Nice demonstration of how important a preheat-er is :), i personaly use the heated bed on my 3d printer gets to around 80-100c

[@shagreobe]

I have an old 3d printer my brother gave me. I've been thinking of making something out of it, this seems perfect for it

[@DevilbyMoonlight]

I'll finally get around to building a pre heater at some point, I got the old board and display from my CR10 left over after an upgrade for the logic as well as the thermistors and the display, I'll most likely use a halogen security lamp as the heat source with an SSR to switch the mains voltage, should be an easy build..

[@sipansibabdreddknot5179]

thanks for beginners tutorials on reflow,reball and rework kinda hard at first but needs more practice overtime to get things right but the tools needed would be a must investment first.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Minimum tools required will be on part two

[@tiiams]

Awesome job don’t stop I’m still learning I could show what I did before your lesson learned a lot.

[@paulc0102]

I would say it's a mistake to assume that "bump gate" only affected nVidia. While it's true only they put their hands up (after a costly court loss) there's no evidence to suggest that any similar devices (e.g. from AMD) also manufactured by TSMC at the time *didn't* also suffer issues in the same order of magnitude. It was a fabrication not a design issue. Keep up the good work :)

[@Rolandpgbrooks]

Thank you so much for this video, im learning so much

[@trouble_maker023]

I personally found reballing (apart from memory bank) always extremely daunting, it took me a long long time to get comfortable with it. Working with the classic lead free high melting point solder spheres is a pain, thus I am using Sn42Bi57Ag1 Solder spheres, they work like a charm. I should add that this alloy is very expensive compared to Leaded or standard lead free.

[@Sydney268]

Just use ordinary 63/37 leaded balls - if you can remove a BGA with lead free balls, then you can replace it easier with leaded balls. Wouldn't trust that bismuth stuff on something that gets as hot as a GPU myself!

[@trouble_maker023]

@@Sydney268 I’ve reballed memory and gpus, and I have yet to encounter problems, plus lead is very unhealthy

[@mreaper2265]

@@trouble_maker023 lead is only a problem once it ends up on the scrapfields. Also the lower melt solder u reball with the sooner it will have to be done again. Not sure why its so difficult for you to reball with regular leadfree solder. It takes a few seconds on low heat and airflow. Will they not melt when you do it?

[@Sydney268]

@@trouble_maker023 fair enough, but I'm sticking to the real stuff! I'm sure there are much worse nasties in the flux than lead, and although solder balls do look nice on cakes, I don't tend to eat them 🤣

[@trouble_maker023]

@@Sydney268 well the only thing in lead is lead, that stuff is pretty nasty, but hey to each their own 🙌

[@shaun4bigblocks993]

I don't know if it is fair to call it a "myth." Though not a "complete" fix it can make a good temporary fix. Back in those days I didn't have reballing equipment and did the oven trick 4 or 5 times over a 2-3 year period with sucess- long enough to get my money's worth out of my laptop until I had a technological excuse to upgrade. I also did this for family and friends. My guess is that as good as you are from a professional perspective, you probably have little experience from a halfazz perspective. Your way is better, but if outsouced usually comes with crazy fees, my way was free for people...

[@redemptusrenatus5336]

I would agree it's not a "myth" if you use the proper temperatures and it's not much higher than 200C that you need to attain for SAC-based lead-free solder (Tin-Silver-Copper) alloys. Peak temperature to reflow is typically between 230C to 250C which you can reach in your oven and you only need to hit that and stay there for 30-90 seconds to ensure proper reflow. I'd say the main thing is not bumping into the oven during the process and let it cool without disturbance so you don't jostle the connections which are still fresh. I did my 2011 27" iMac's NVIDIA GPU this way somewhere around 2019 when the screen started acting crazy and then went dim and totally went out. It was the video card ultimately and after baking it according to someone on KZbin who had gotten just the right temps to use (ramping up to preheat, soaking at 200C, then reflowing at the higher temp) my system worked just fine for years, being a daily-driver for software development, graphics editing, and video editing until we replaced it with a newer system finally. It still works today, it's just older is all. Being old and out of warranty, it was worth a shot instead of spending $$$ at a shop and finding it may not work anyway. One of the key things the KZbin video showed was to use K5 PRO Viscous Thermal Paste which is for Thermal Pad Replacement. It's not like normal thermal paste that you are only meant to apply a thin coating. The NVIDA cards had different chips on them that all needed to make contact with the heatsink and they were different heights so different thickness pads were used on them. This material was specifically made to be able to form thicker pads to whatever height you needed up to 3mm and they would keep transfer heat effectively. Unfortunately I can't find the video I used to effect my repair. :(

[@izzzzzz6]

I would try to reflow with the hot air station and flux before actually removing it and going through the entire polava of reballing. the balls are still there they just became dry joints, with flux they should melt back together with the hot air station.

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya never done BGA work at all it seems cool I'm thinking about giving it a try

[@jeraldleung6009]

Once Flux bobbles or the chip move, can lift the chip up

[@davidv1289]

Very nicely done - thank you for showing us all the tricks. I wonder if the pre-heater thermostat is marked in degrees Fahrenheit 🤔.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Actually it may well be 😉

[@ronan4681]

Agreed ... bring on part 2

[@Mr2Xri]

Hello, could you tell us the model of your reballing station?

[@smarty0604]

Great informative video this pal

[@edwinwaugh]

Looking forward to part 2 😁

[@Tech101yt]

Is it possible to accomplish a bga replacement without a board heater/thermocouple? The chip is removed successfully and the new chip is pre-balled, and I’ll be using a temperature controlled station. I’ve seen others using 220c for the same job

[@frankbennett8877]

Thanks for a great video. What flux do you use.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Tools and all that will be on part two 😁

[@Skipperc3po]

You use the hotair without noozle🤔

[@daz41262010]

great video Richard :)

[@roboandrew1]

Very useful. A very informative watch Can you possible do some with your big rework station to see if you can configure it for that kind of memory module or even a cpu socket replacment be an interesting watch

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Yes I will use that later in this series

[@Sydney268]

Nice work!

[@HaploPrime]

From what I was looking this up in the other resources they said not to put flux on all 4 corners or it'll create an air seal and not get under the BGA chip. Anyone know how true this is? I mean in theory sounds like it makes sense.

[@mcac-youtube]

I think its not so important, The temperatura, the pre heater and enough time is more...

[@j44dge]

Alfie Solomons teaches reballing ;)

[@SemNick-j9l]

THANKS!!

[@evelhorn]

I do it in a simular way, I find flipping it over and heating it up first then go at the chip. But what ever works

[@David_11111]

yay where is part two :)

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

I only just published part one, to test the water so to speak. Part two in the next few days

[@willthecat3861]

IMO calling this 'reballing" is like calling like saying a trutle is a horse; because they both have four legs. Where's the solder balls, stencil, and jig? This is soldering... not reballing. Reballing is a complete PITA. Soldering these chips might work... as long as... you don't want it to last, don't flex the board, don't overheat the chip, don't flex on the heat sink... and know your lucky lottery number is about to pay off any day now.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

This is part one - you have to practice and learn how to get the BGA chip off the board without damaging either of them before you can move forwards. Part two we are going to look at required equipment and the limitations of it, and then part three will definitely involve some reballing. It takes time to practice and learn this stuff, let's not get ahead of ourselves 😉

[@willthecat3861]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Ok. Point taken. I guess I was getting ahead of myself. Looking forward to the other vids.

[@7alken]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair hi, question ... wouldn't be these cleaned FAR happier with plain old SnPb this way instead of that idiotic reballing gymnastics? btw, I don't do repairs ... my dad did, entire life; I am here only because I want to try tiny new part placement, 7x7mm UFBGA132 0.5mm pitch ... hoping that with good flux (which one?) some support from bottom (mini hot plate) and hot air, its doable ))

[@aldanimam9862]

nice

[@willthecat3861]

IMO, U don't need the braid... and if you use it... you will lift a pad off of the PCB...eventually... and it won't be a 20 year old scap PCB, it happens to.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

What leads you to this opinion? Forget 'eventually' I used to lift pads off the PCB all the time when first using this technique until I learnt how to do it reliably by practicing using scrap stuff, and I then moved onto more worthwhile stuff once I gained some confidence and experience (thanks to some good advice and help from some guys on badcaps.net in particular) Now I very rarely lift pads using braid to clean the PCB and BGA, but I am always willing to learn to do things better, so how do you do it without braid?

[@willthecat3861]

@@LearnElectronicsRepair Well... and perhaps it's not the best analogy...but, I used to watch high steel workers here... you know... incredibly skilled, and ultra-confident in the job they do: walking unlettered on high steel, hundreds of feet in the air.. and I always thought to myself, watching them... ya... I could do that too... after I fell a couple of times.

[@Denise_in_progress]

Reballing is not always necessary, watch channel repairschool