Hacker Camp Shenzhen Day 3: Soldering workshop

By ian

Hacker Camp Shenzhen’s main event, the BGA reballing course, continues for a second day. At this point most people had reballed a chip, or were close to finishing. For the rest of the day out instructor, a master solder ninja, took on every challenge we tossed at him.

Before the workshop stated though, we wander a little in the classroom and scope out a lot of cool stuff. There are a bunch of tools that diagnose memory and CPU chips, as well as phone screens. Zack holds a CPU and memory tester with two BGA chip clamps custom made for the school.

The hour and a half of the workshop is about practicing. Everybody reballed chips a few times. The teacher walks around to inspects chips and dish out cool tips.

Aaron starts reflowing his awarded phone from yesterday. He found an SD card and socket inside the phone.

We challenged the teacher to remove and replace all kinds of delicate connectors, connectors on flex circuits, and more. He handled it all like a pro. No special techniques needed, just patience and practice.

Bunnie shows up with iPhone5 boards, chips, and stencils from the market. He challenges the teacher to reball and resolder the chips.

Fist the he solders the chip to the PCB using the factory supplied balls. Then he removes and cleans it, and applies new balls.

This is the reballed iPhone5 radio chip. Perfect the first time.

Who but real geeks surround a BGA chip to take photos and gawk? It’s amazing to see how he does it.

THAT’S A WRAP! We had so much fun in the soldering workshop that we stayed an extra half an hour to reball more chips.

Via Hacker Camp Shenzhen mini-site: Hacker Camp Shenzhen Day 3: Soldering workshop