TR Forums

Some people throw out broken parts, but this guy bakes 'em. I wonder if/why this works.

Sweet !

Well, the temp he used is right about the melting point of solder, so theoretically this procedure could fix a dodgy solder connection (assuming he doesn't fatally cook any of the components, which is a significant risk). I think putting it component side down was probably a mistake; if he had really gotten all of the solder hot enough to reflow it, some of the components would've dropped off the board! (He must've gotten lucky, and taken it just far enough to fix the bad connection without completely desoldering the components...)

Well, if it were flipped the other way wouldn't there be a risk of the components compressing the solder thereby spreading it and making incidental connections?

There is a simple solution to the solder flowing problem - just do the heating in a zero-G enviroment!

DreadCthulhu wrote:

There is a simple solution to the solder flowing problem - just do the heating in a zero-G enviroment!

Watch out for the necromorphs.

titan wrote:

Well, if it were flipped the other way wouldn't there be a risk of the components compressing the solder thereby spreading it and making incidental connections?

It wouldn't work that way. The reflowed solder is significantly more dense than the attached parts. The parts would literally float on the molten solder and would center themselves on the pads as a result of surface tension. And the solder itself is constrained by that same surface tension to stay directly over the metal pad on the board.

As fas as parts falling off, I think only the very heaviest parts (coils, stuff with heatsinks attached) are at risk of falling off, as even molten solder is "sticky" enough (surface tension again) to retain most SMT components against the force of gravity.

I might still have a Leadtek 5900 (overclockable past Ultra speeds) that suffered Mail Failure with resulting cracked BGA solder connections on some of the memory chips. Guess I should try this just for the fun of it, although I think that one had electrolytic caps onboard that will need to be pulled first.