By ian
Hacker Camp Shenzhen’s main event is a two day soldering course at a mobile phone repair school in Huaqiangbei. They teach a technique to replace the solder balls used to connect modern BGA chips to circuits boards. Usually this process requires special machinery, but the repair school teaches a simple hand technique that we learned on recycled cell phones. We also learned advanced soldering tricks and techniques from a master. See the first day of soldering workshop below the break.
Nik is removing an RF shield in order to get at the BGA chips hiding underneath.
RF shields, memory chip, CPU all removed from the board.
After taking the CPU off the board, we clamp it with the PCB holder for cleaning.
Removing and cleaning BGA chips.
When the chip is clean and shiny, it’s ready to be reballed. Mastro puts a stencil over the chip, finds the matching lines, and holds the stencil with tweezers. After that, Mastro places dry solder paste onto the stencil.
Tom holds the stencil with tweezers while heating the solder paste quickly with the hot air rework station. The balls start forming in the stencil.
Aaron @ Oomlout was the first to successfully reball his BGA chip. He’s awarded the iPhone5c knock-off we bought in the market the day before. Later the instructor tore down the phone and we found several surprises inside.
Aaron’s brand new phone and reballed chip.
Bunnie shows off his reballed BGA chip.
Via Hacker Camp Shenzhen mini-site: Hacker Camp Shenzhen Day 2: Soldering workshop