Homemade Reflow - Advise On Equipment And Method, DIY Reflows Options

[DrunkenNinja]

I have been researching reflows for weeks now and have read a lot, I even went through the majority of junk on Youtube videos, the reason for this is I am waiting on some test RROD xbox's to arrive in the mail that I want to repair.

Where to start,

The oven reflow although recommended as the best probably does not suit the equipment I have available as the temperature gain on my ovens is too gradual and the flexing benefits of the oven system would probably go out of the window due to me having to throw the board in hot.

HeatGun, is debatable some say no, no and others say it's great, the info here on the forum seems to side with it being a bad idea.

Rework station - Not enough work to warrant the cost of the equipment.

It's amazing the little tips you can pick up from here and there, and I think I have come up with something that should give me a decent reflow.

At home I have a grill (used for food), which has a temperature dial up to 220 Celsius which I would like to use as a pre-heater of sorts, I am thinking of increasing the temperature in 50 Celsius increments up to 180 Celsius?, I will of course need to watch the timings to not fry the board and would have it supported by some nuts and bolts so it is not in direct contact with the grill, I guess the usual insulation for sensitive parts would apply?, once heated I could then liquid flux the chips and Hot Air Gun at 375 Celsius (lowest setting - 2nd setting is 495 Celsius) for 4 minutes moving quickly around the board.

Will this work, or have I lost my marbles, I am thinking of getting some kind of thermometer for the board for the Hot Air Gun section so I can gauge the distance I should have between the Hot Air Gun and the Board.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, whether it be on timings, temps or a just don't do it, do it this way.

Again many thanks!!!!

[MrX4000]

You realize you posted this in the XBox1 section ? You might get more responses in the XBox360 section .... just saying

[johnney5]

Here is a great thread on the Llamma forums titled "What RROD repair method works best for you?":

http://forums.llamma.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=31828

There is another topic on the llamma forums that detail the procedure for the oven reflow where the person used LOTS of insulation, leaving only the CPU + GPU exposed to the high temperatures... I can't find the thread, though.

Someone else re-wrote their guide, changing a few things around... That I found the link to, which is here --> http://forums.xbox-experts.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=968

If you aren't going to be using a reflow station which directs heat in specific zones, protecting the parts other than the CPU + GPU is important. I haven't tried this personally, but I do have an RROD system that I may try the oven method with eventually.

Although the poll on the llamma forum says XClamp replacement worked, I believe reflow/reball is more important than just replacing XClamps. Replacing the XClamp from the start might be a great way to prevent the RROD from happening to a new console, but I believe reflow is the best when it comes to actually repairing the RROD.

I've replaced XClamps with machine screws + washers and used replacement thermal paste on 2 Xbox 360s so far with no luck (or they lasted 2 to 4 weeks tops).

By the way, you posted in the wrong section

[shambles1980]

please dont use a xclamp replacment..
They use the pressure of the connection to press the chip(s) down on the board this sometimes reconnects the solder to the pad. but the bigest thing that happens is that the chip presses down on the board and it heats up and flexes then cools and contracts and because the chip is pressing down on the area you find that it eventualy creates a dent about the size of the chip under the heat sink.
this dent only ever increases the rate of RROD after it has happend. and depending on how severe it is. or wether it pulled pad's / traces when it happend, you can end up wioth a board that irriperable.
X-calmps replacment kits are THE reason why i stoped buying RROD boxes to fix.

People would get an xbox, it would eventually RROD. then they would get an xclamp fix. and it worked for a while. Then it would RROD again. so theyd re heat the system or tighten thr bolts/screws even more. Sometime it would work again for a while. other times it wouldnt. Eventualy even the ones that worked for a while wouldnt work again. And then they decide to sell them...

xclamp replacments are a temporary fix. they are not a repair.
I have personaly taken quite a few of these things off the market by binning them the instant i saw the xclamp fix had been done to them.

Personaly.. IF i was going to go with a home made fix (IF) and i will stress 1ce more IF.. <-- Thats a big if.
Then the home made fix i would probably advize would be an oven bake. But your probably going to lose some resistors and can blow out some caps.
so you would need some kapton tape. to tape down all the smd resistors exetera on the underside of the board (there are a whole crap load"
And you would need to properly insulate all areas that you dont want to heat.
You should also use no clean flux. to help the solder flow properly.
Make sure that its 100% level b4 you start. and dont bump it at any time or for like 20 mins after its done being baled.
Check your oven temps and check what temps you need for lead free solder to flow. dont get it too hot or it may just cause a bridge
Then when your done if it dosent work Dont sell the damn things on.

also the lead free solder is the main problem. many believe its not that good with heat but it actualy has a higer melting point than lead solder. The real prblem with it is that it does not flex aswell as lead solder. so it tends to crack and get fissures in it.
"so by that explanation all the xclamps will ever really do is make it worse as they help the board to flex when hot in exactly the area we dont want any flexing."
so anything your going to do as a reflow is only ever really going to be a fix unless you find away to stop heat flexing the motherboard when its in the xbox.
"the xcalmps in that respect are better than the replacment as they press back up against the area the heat sink is pressing down. although IMO they always needed to be stronger"
the real repair always will be to reball the chips with lead solder.

and you should have put this in the 360 forum.

This post has been edited by shambles1980: Jan 16 2012, 07:09 PM

[DrunkenNinja]

Looks like I am now in the right section, thanks mods...

It really does create a puzzle, I was all set with my hot Air Gun and liquid flux but now I am forced logically to re-look at the Oven Reflow, through the advise of others that have been there and done it, I really do appreciate you taking time to post sensible replies fellas.

The Oven Re-flow just looks so crazy, I'm not even sure my oven can get to those temperatures fast enough, as I mine is not one of those Microwave/Conventional Oven combos, It really would be an all or nothing scenario.

Any ideas, guides, advise is greatly appreciated.

[johnney5]

please dont use a xclamp replacment..
They use the pressure of the connection to press the chip(s) down on the board this sometimes reconnects the solder to the pad. but the bigest thing that happens is that the chip presses down on the board and it heats up and flexes then cools and contracts and because the chip is pressing down on the area you find that it eventualy creates a dent about the size of the chip under the heat sink.
this dent only ever increases the rate of RROD after it has happend.

This is a really good point. When reading a guide to RROD repair, this was noted to be the most logical explanation for why RROD happens. Each time I personally attempted to fix the RROD, rather than replacing the XClamps, I was removing them and using machine screws + washers (this was to "Evenly distribute the pressure") and like I said, it only lasted a couple weeks. Is it possible that using machine screws and washers is just as bad as the XClamp/XClamp "replacements"?

I am a newbie to this as well, as I've only followed guides and practiced without much success on a few Xbox 360s.

DrunkenNinja, as far as the oven reflow goes, did you find the thread I mentioned before on llamma about the "oven reflow"? To be honest, after reading it and seeing the photos, plus reading the ENTIRE thread of other peoples comments / experiences / tips I felt a lot more confident about the oven reflow (despite how ridiculous of a method it is). I also don't have the microwave/oven combo. The topic on llamma had the specific temperatures w/ "cooking times" for each specific temperature. Not sure if the person who explained the method used a regular oven or a microwave/oven combo, but I seriously suggest trying to find that thread if you haven't already.

I'm also in the same spot, I don't have money for a reflow station and at this point, I refuse to even drop the $50 (nor do I have the money to anyway) to have it reflowed / reballed considering that my NES and Genesis still work perfect, yet out of 5 of the Xbox 360s I've bought, none have lasted longer than a year each.

This post has been edited by johnney5: Jan 18 2012, 07:03 AM

[DrunkenNinja]

The last two weeks all I have been doing is reading, I have learnt so much, I have read both oven reflow threads one on Lllama and the other on Xbox Xperts, for my type of oven they suggest throwing the board in at around 180oC and I am not very comfortable with hitting the board immediately with that kind of heat, I prefer the controlled blasts of heat provided in the original tests by the microwave/conventional oven combo, I can definitely see how that would work very well and is similar to a professional reflow profile.

I am siding with an extremely controlled heatgun method right now, using a griddle to pre-heat the board to 120oC and k-type thermocouples to control/measure the chips temperature when being blasted with the heatgun, this environment in theory should be close to a proper workstation and I would feel in control, I would also do one chip at a time and would not need to worry about excessive isolation as a foil stencil bolted to the heatsink should do the trick.

The only thing I don't have right now is the digital theomometer and thermocouples but I am hoping to pick up a cheap Chinese one for this purpose locally, if not it will be flea bay item no. 280800593746.

Actually this is very close to what I want to do: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=716126

This post has been edited by DrunkenNinja: Jan 18 2012, 11:36 AM

[johnney5]

DrunkenNinja that doesn't look bad at all. I finally found the link to the tutorial I mentioned before (oven reflow) which is here http://forums.llamma.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=27431

Good luck w/ whichever you decide to go through with.