Reballing jig test - finally I can reball a chip too! 

I'm glad you liked it, thanks for your comment!

You're very welcome and good luck!

Hey thank you so much, very kind of you to say - thanks for watching and for the sub!

You’re always very kind, Ted! Thank you, appreciated!

Hey thank you so much!

Thanks for your kind words!

Thank you!

Thanks Martin, appreciated!

Thank you!

I see what you mean, I think I’ve seen them online (for sale!). I like this tool though. It does what it says. My main complaint is the four stand screws which are too loose, they should have had some sort of locking mechanism. Thanks for watching!

Glad you liked it thanks for watching!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you for watching!

absolutely, practice is key. First attempt will be "why am I even trying" but it'll get better. Thanks for watching and congrats on your tests!

I’m glad it helps someone understanding the process. I’ve been tinkering with BGA for many years now and yes, it’s a scary thing 😂 As long as your hot air handle can deliver uniform temps, that might be ok. For large nozzles you need that plus higher airflow. My previous station was a toy and I’ve only burnt things with that. The pre-heating plate is a must. That’s a fact. Smaller ICs are simpler to work on of course. Check out my GTX480 repair video where I do reball and attach an IC (with a working result) for the first time. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LWdWm6zJDxA.html Thanks for watching and for the nice comment!

@@tony359 Awesome, thanks Tony - will check it out 👍

Thanks for watching!

Thank you!

one of my many language gaffes :) Won't be the last one for sure!

Thank you for watching!

Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!

You're very welcome and thanks for watching!

ahah yes, it takes a little patience indeed :)

Thank you!

Thank you!

Good question. I know I didn't buy it myself, it must have come with one of the reballing jig I got.

You're more than welcome!

Yes, the adjustment is not clear at all. I think I discovered how to use it by watching other videos - also I figured I could not just drop the stencil on the greasy IC or I would make a mess! Ball size, well I usually google around, each chip has its own so I'm not sure there is an empirical way to test. That said, I guess it could be "guessable" with a calibrated microscope maybe? Thanks for watching!

You're welcome thank you!

oh my - I never tried such complex ones. I hope it worked for you! I still need to experiment on XBOX and PS3! :) Thanks for watching!

​@@tony359 I have applied your advice to some DDR chip reballing yesterday. It totally improved the result and I was able to revive my RTX 3070 card. Thanks a lot.

@@DJSolitone oh wow, it's so cool! Thanks for letting me know and well done!

You're welcome!

Thank you for watching. What board is that, what hot air station and what temps/airflow are you using?

Yes, I have it somewhere! Thanks for watching!

From my understanding if the stencil says 0.6, it will work with 0.6 - that is, the holes are larger than 0.6. Thanks for watching!

Hello - I’m not sure how big those chips are but if they’re similar to GPU ram chips then you might want to take a look at my latest video! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LWdWm6zJDxA.html Thanks for watching!

ahah thanks! It actually took me some time to get there :)

The stencil I use here is not a direct heat one. It must be removed and the balls heated then. I did try with a super-cheap direct heat one and I had the same problem. That said, it's not the balls getting stuck - solder should not bond with the stencil. It's the flux. Try warming it up a bit before removing the stencil. But honestly I think the "non direct heat" ones are better - though they're a bit more tricky to use as you see in the video! Thanks for watching!

@@tony359, thank you very much for your advice. I am trying to reball an iPhone cpu.

That's smaller than small I guess! I am not an expert but I think that for an iPhone you do use direct heat ones and solder PASTE, not balls. I've only seen that done on videos, I have no direct experience. Still, a stencil shouldn't bond to the solder. I think it's getting stuck to the flux. But honestly I don't have experience on that. Good luck! :)

It's a simple alluminium plate resting on the pre-heater. This is because you don't want to work directly on the heating plates. There are cheap small "hot plates" available now which can be used to heat up an IC so melt the solder balls, @NorthWestRepair is using one and it's cool.

@tony359 i did see that video, he also has a tiny ultrasonic for cleaning chips that looks interesting too. Thanks for the info!

I still need to look into the solder paste as I can only find "low melt" one... Thank you for your comment and yes, that fun English moment was brought to my attention by a friend! LOL, totally unintentional! :D

that's not "old junk" anymore, where's the fun in that? :) Just kidding, never considered that, thanks for the idea!

Welcome Dave!

That's a good question. I don't think you could use solder paste on a large IC like the one shown here - I think it would be impossible to hold the stencil steady while flowing the paste. But for tiny ICs like mobile ones, that's probably the only solution. I suppose that for "in between ICs" both methods would work and it's down to personal preferences. That said, I never tried reballing an IC with solder paste. Thanks for watching!

Hi - I 3D printed it 🙂 I’m using the microscope arm and i (badly) designed an adaptor. I’ll show it on a video at some point, it works like charm as I’m using the focus adjustment to move the handle up and down. Thanks for watching!

@@tony359 awesome, I bought a cheap monitor arm and have my microscope mounted on that, but would love some mount to quickly being able to use the hot air station by hand and on a stand.

@@jacobtc I’ve been thinking a lot of a stand and I couldn’t find a good (cheap) solution. You want the nozzle to be stable and parallel to the board and to be able to move it up and down with ease. I could think of something that would keep the nozzle parallel but not easy to move, that is, it would require a little time to re-align it and you don’t have time while reflowing. One day I thought of my microscope arm - it’s a C-mount arm you can see here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2Ag7E7KMR6s.html All I did was to create a plastic collar which adapts the handle to the scope arm.

Thank you! I got then from Aliexpress, I’ll find the exact listing.

@@tony359 thanks so much...i want to learn about gpu repair..it would be nice to have someone to ask questions about the topic...

This is the one I bought - I have no affiliation with the seller. www.aliexpress.com/item/32847165892.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.114.21ef1802k670r9 Reballing/Reflowing is difficult. Very difficult. Online videos make it look very easy but it's not. As a minimum you need a pre-heating machine and a good hot air station. This is at least my opinion :) Good luck!

@@tony359 have you done it yourself with sucess? and do you have a discord or telegram where i can chat with you, if its ok with you?

No, I can't say I've been succesfull on that task. I'm still working on it. I'm planning to share my findings on a video at some point, watch this space! All I can say for now is: it's not as easy as getting a heat gun and blasting 500C at a PCB :)

100% lead solder. Lead free solder melts 40C higher than lead solder.

I re-use them until they break! :)

ah - good question. I got those with the jig. I measured them for you and they are 0.3mm. Can you buy different thickness?

BGA ICs are rated for those temperatures for a limited amount of time - like 30 seconds or so. This is why the actual reflow temperature should be maintained for as little as possible and can only be done a limited amount of times. The running temperatures are those which the ICs can withstand all the time, all their life. Thanks for watching!

@@tony359 makes sense, thank you for your in-depth reply

well if they don't go through the stencil, then either your stencil is damaged, your solder balls are too big for the stencil (the stencil should have written on it the right ball size) or your solder balls are bad quality/deformed. Are you sure your stencil is not just dirty? Thanks for watching.

to be honest, I don't have a recommendation. I've always used the Amtech 559 - and wondering if I've ever used the real one . Coincidentally I've ordered a cheaper alternative one from Aliexpress just the other day. Watch this space! :)

@@tony359 Okay yes, thx for the fast answer :). The Amtech seems to be a common used flux. I actually found a nice "no-clean" flux the Topnik Zel, it seems pretty good for hald the price. You have tested this flux before ?

No I haven't!

If that refers to the HM65 chipset, I'm afraid I don't have one! Thanks for watching!

I'm using my microscope C-mount stand, I 3D printed an adaptor for the quick handle. One day I'll share it with the community (the dimensions are not right at the moment so I cannot share it I'm afraid)

@@tony359 awesome I see I was wondering since the images online didn’t show a stand . Thanks for the really insightful video. Subbed 😝

Thank you! I know that stand could be useful and I'd love to share it. It's on my to-do list! :)

ah yes, that is part of "keep everything clean" :) Thanks for watching!

@@tony359 :D ah, right, my bad...I can tell from some experience that i lost my patience quite often because some stencils (gtx 1080ti) you can hardly even on aliexpress find a proper 90mm verson to mount properly and even if, often times the mounts cant fit a 45mm chip, made me so mad when i wasted a few hundreds leaded solder balls for a few attempts

I can relate to that, reballing with those stencils takes a LOT of patience. A lot! and things will go wrong the first few times.

I google it :) If the info is not available then I do not know :)

No, I don't think so. The amount of solder left on the chip is not going to be enough. Also, if the chip is lead-free, you really want to get rid of the lead-free solder and replace it with leaded. It will make the reflow MUCH simpler. Thanks for watching!

@@tony359 i have a chinese hotplate that can go below the motherboard , but idk if it could work , im using a donor z97 mb for the swap , im swaping the southbridge chipset , but i cant find any stencils nor know the solder ball size.

​@@lietus4192 I usually google online to find the solder ball size, or you could ask some online communities. I do not know if there is a way to determine the size from the chip. If you've never done this before, my advice is: practice on some scrap boards first! It's not an easy task. Particularly with lead-free solder. I wish you luck of course!

Yes! The "secret" is to keep things as clean as possible! They'll still roll everywhere though...

Never been successful with them. Online I see them used for small ICs only. You might be referring to those, used with solder paste?

@@tony359 il use them with solder Ball for bigger ic like ps4 apu and ps3 gpu and solder paste for smaller lire ram and southbridge hana chip

@@adeldjamel5299 Can you share a link? My attempts with the one I have were poor and I don't see anybody using them online - besides for small phone ICs.

@tony359 I use them since 2015

@tony359 I sent you a link but I don't know why it can't be sent

Oh yes, I do say weird things from time to time! :) Thanks for watching!

Why?

I don’t have it but I was thinking of trying it. That said, I could only find ‘low temp melt’ paste online?

@@tony359 yup that should be ok for learning how to use it

@@evilborg I can give that a go for sure, thanks. One problem I might have is that I believe all my stencils are now NOT the ‘direct heat’ type so probably unsuitable for the solder paste?

@@tony359 correct... you will need to get new stencils for direct heat

@@evilborg I’m not comfortable in warming a chip stuck in a vice… it will try to expand! I’m not sure my jig is suitable for that. Others will be for sure. I’ve got some solder paste anyways to test - not on this jig though

Thanks for watching!

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amazing! :D