June 23, 2009
Isolating a Plated Hole From Ground
Once involved in rework and repair, you quickly realize that all the tools you need to get the job done are just not always available. It occurs to you that unless you're prepared to ...
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June 23, 2009
3 Options for BGA Rework Paste Application
No matter how much we attempt to streamline and automate the process, BGA rework has been, and will likely always be, a mixture of art and science. The need for a predictable...
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June 23, 2009
X-Ray System Eye Opener
Some time ago we had the good fortune to obtain a Dage X-Ray machine. For years we had been using an older machine that has been an absolutely reliable workhorse ...
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May 27, 2009
BGA Conductor Path Re-design
This re-design centered around a 676 ball BGA component. A total of 23 of the balls on the BGA were not connected where they needed to be. It would have been easier if the pads ...
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May 27, 2009
Circuit Board Modifications: Odd But True
Some of the odd twists and turns occasionally needed to modify assembled circuit boards can be surprising. Modifications that at first glance might seem almost ridiculous ...
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April 28, 2009
BGA Component Warp - Can It Be Prevented?
Rework can result in BGA warpage - find out how it can be prevented. Most would agree, I'm sure, that BGA rework is nothing to chuckle about, but some of the antics performed by ...
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April 28, 2009
Damaged Conductor Repair - Like Circuit Brain Surgery
WOW! A batch of circuit boards were improperly and dramatically drilled in a spot they weren't supposed to be drilled in. That can be a tough error to recover from when applied to today's complex ...
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April 28, 2009
Trimming Conductors In Very Tight Places
Anyone familiar with high-frequency and microwave printed circuits understands the sensitive design considerations each requires. Occasionally, you may encounter the need to reduce a circuit or conductor width when ...
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March 25, 2009
Jumper Wire Overload
Oops! Somebody goofed. Happens all the time. Surface mount connectors' connections were accidentally swapped. How in the world can that be corrected? ...
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March 25, 2009
X-Ray Finds Shorts in Drilled Holes
Drilling boards in the post-production environment is tricky work. Certainly if the board is populated with components and other hardware the setup alone can be time consuming... ...
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March 23, 2009
Cutting Circuits and Conductors
Quite often, a rework department is confronted with the task of cutting, rather than establishing, connections. Often called etch cuts, such procedures involve breaking connections both
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February 24, 2009
Converting Soldered BGA Pads to Gold
Flexibility, the ability to change, is a valuable asset. Anyone can tell you it's easier conceived than executed. Take BGA devices for example. When engineers are developing ...
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February 24, 2009
Buried Conductor Rework
In every industry there is a gap between conception and execution. It doesn't take much time in the business to learn that ideas are very important, but they are usually the ...
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February 23, 2009
PTH Repair - How to Select the Right Eyelet
One of my favorite circuit board repair procedures is Plated Hole Repair. Even in today's high tech world there are still thousands of circuit boards being used made with through hole ...
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January 28, 2009
Beyond the Standards
In the world of rework and repair there can never be a standard procedure for every emergency. Things can happen too quickly and "on-the-spot" there can be an urgent ...
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January 27, 2009
Elegant Alternative to Dead Bug Rework
This is an example of a recent project where the solution was more reliable, less labor intensive and much more elegant that the alternative... dead bugging.
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December 16, 2008
A Broken Flash Memory Card and the White House
What do you do when a Flash memory SD card containing photos of President George W. Bush and your client in the White House breaks into pieces, leaving you holding one of the tiny microchips you know full well should be inside ...
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December 15, 2008
BGA Pattern Footprint Mods... Are They Possible?
BGA rework is a topic about which volumes have been written, and in most cases the focus has been on component removal and replacement. However, equally important ...
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November 18, 2008
Scrapes, Dings and Cavities Repaired
Millions of dollars are spent each year on the care and handling of circuit assemblies. Nevertheless, inevitably - and to the frustration of everyone involved - handling ...
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November 18, 2008
A Time Saver, But Beware - How to Use a Solder Fountain
A complicated, time-consuming procedure is transformed into a quick and easy fix. Rework departments regularly encounter large through-hole components on ...
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October 28, 2008
Restoring Gold Edge Connectors
From time to time, gold edge contacts become contaminated with solder. This most often occurs during reflow of an assembly, and may be caused by solder spatter, or ...
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October 24, 2008
Solution to a Pad and Part Size Mismatch
What industry standard applies to a pad / part size mismatch. Well, how's this for a mouthful, "IPC-J-STD-001D, Requirements for Soldered Electrical and Electronic Assemblies, Table 7-4, Dimensional ...
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September 24, 2008
How reliable is your rework?
Can you fix a broken corner on a circuit board reliably? Should you attempt to repair a damaged plated hole with an inner layer connection? Your opinion and experiences ...
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September 18, 2008
Missing Ground Connections
This latest problem is a board with a series of plated through holes that are not connected to ground. It would seem easy enough to ...
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July 15, 2008
Hey, Good Lookin': Making Cosmetic Repairs
Cosmetic surgery is big business today, but our discussion here is not about facelifts or tummy tucks. We're concerned with the cosmetic touch ups we must often ...
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June 19, 2008
Agilent Adapter Rework
This procedure provides an overview of the process for installing Agilent DDR2 DRAM BGA Probes onto circuit board assemblies.
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May 22, 2008
4 Techniques for Removing Solder Mask
Seems like a reasonable request. You've asked your board supplier to apply solder mask only where you want it. Now you're up against a deadline and you hear "we've ...
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May 16, 2008
Broken Pin Repair
While working with an extremely expensive prototype component, a tech broke off one of the pins at the base near the component body. While this tech was ...
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March 22, 2008
Solder Mask Touch-Up At BGA Sites: An Ounce Of Prevention
Over the centuries, I'm sure that there have been proverbs written in every language about how the neglect of one small, seemingly insignificant thing can mushroom into ...
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January 21, 2008
Rebuilding the Foundation: Base Material Damage
valuable circuit boards are scrapped due to base material damage. Actually, boards with base material damage can be reliably repaired. Now that ...
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January 6, 2008
Multi-Pin Connector Removal and Replacement: Tackling "Goliath"
with "math anxiety" knows, just the sight of an ultra-thick calculus textbook can be intimidating, but armed with a methodical approach and the right procedure...
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November 17, 2007
Jumper Wires Basics
The twists and turns of working with jumper wires. The need to attach jumper wires to circuit board assemblies is inevitable...
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November 11, 2007
Overcoming Press-in Fastener Damage
Press-in Fasteners are a simple, yet very important element of printed circuit assembly. They are self-clinching fasteners that permit the mounting of heavy ...
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November 9, 2007
Hot Air Rework
When using hot air units, the proper nozzles must be selected, and the circuit assembly must be positioned properly...
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October 4, 2007
Choosing The Right Operator for BGA Rework
Can every operator handle your BGA rework equally well? In real life, in all but just a few situations, the answer is no. Why is this so? Many factors come into play, including ...
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August 20, 2007
Soldering Tips and Tricks for Successful Rework
Although soldering, the process of joining two metals by the use of a solder alloy, is one of the oldest know joining techniques, manual or hand soldering is still a process ...
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August 13, 2007
All That Glitters
Gold edge contacts can become worn, damaged or contaminated by solder and must be either repaired and restored, or replaced. Generally, two options are available to ...
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August 10, 2007
BGA Footprint Mismatch: Daughter Card to the Rescue
have a new board and the BGA component doesn't fit the board footprint. Is this a nightmare of a problem? It is one we see every other month or so. It seems to ...
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June 14, 2007
Edge Milling to Reduce Board Thickness
It's not unusual for circuit boards that have been fabricated with a thickness greater than .062" to require additional milling to reduce that thickness on certain ...
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June 14, 2007
Am I Dreaming... 2600 Pin BGA Rework!
The following is a true story. Can you imagine being confronted by this challenge? It�s a dubious honor; being designated the company BGA rework guru, but it�s your ...
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May 27, 2007
Stereo Zoom Microscopes: Rework's Essential Tool
Microscopes have become essential tools in the rework and repair department. While there have been (and still are) many applications for other types of manually-operated ...
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May 11, 2007
When Appearance Counts
Repairing a damaged circuit with a wire is commonplace, but the repair will shout out "Look at me, I've been repaired!." When you want to repair a damaged circuit but don't want ...
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May 4, 2007
BGA ECOs - Nifty Solution or Rework Nightmare?
Here's a situation that you may experience someday, if you haven't already. It's a true story, and experience from real life. A startup electronics company discovered ...
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April 27, 2007
Extra Strength Repair, Not Just Hype
Extra Strength! How often do you hear it in your everyday life? Extra strength medication, extra strength glue, extra strength (fill in the blanks)! It's ...
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April 3, 2007
The Case of the Missing SMT Pads
Everyone loves a good mystery, unless, of course, that mystery has to do with something important that's missing from your valuable circuit boards! We often discuss ...
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February 7, 2007
The Via that Wasn't - Adding Vias to Assembled Circuit Boards
We've all heard of via in pad, blind vias, even buried vias, but have you ever experienced the "Via to nowhere" phenomena? Well, here's how it goes ...
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February 4, 2007
Salvaging Hidden Treasure from Assembled Circuit Boards
Have you heard this one before? A manager walks into a meeting and is told that there is one million dollars worth of circuit assemblies that are scrap because of... fill in the blank ...
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November 3, 2006
Backplane X-ray Analysis
This is one of those things that drive people in this business mad. A very expensive and difficult board, which once on the job has to endure in a harsh environment, was ...
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September 29, 2006
Large Voids are Hard to Fill
In the electronics industry, gold plating is ancient technology and the problems encountered in plating are just as ancient. Unfortunately that doesn't ...
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May 1, 2006
As the Solder Flows
Soldering to gold has never been a flawless exercise. Concerns about the quality and quantity of gold finishes buzz around the soldering process like annoying ...
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December 5, 2005
Exploding Solder Balls
Could such a thing occur? People are soldering tens of thousands of BGA components a day. Most of this activity occurs in the flow of manufacturing and some during ...
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November 17, 2005
Counterfeit Detection Part II
A while back we wrote an article about "Counterfeit Components", a hot button issue. Quite a few people responded with concerns about identifying counterfeits...
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November 9, 2005
Counterfeit Detection
Bogus, fake, false, forged, yes, counterfeit components. That's what I'm talkin about! Working in the electronics industry is like sailing on the broad sea. No matter how skillfully ...
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May 11, 2005
Masking the Solution for BGA Rework
Every now and then an error will occur at the most inopportune time; in this case it was in the design phase of the printed circuit board. When circuit boards are ...
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January 21, 2005
Profiles in Courage
Why do you need an extra board to do a BGA rework profile anyway? I've had millions of different types of through hole and surface mount parts placed on boards and the ...
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