Author Topic: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering  (Read 1637 times)

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Offline newbie666Topic starter

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Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« on: January 21, 2019, 05:00:45 pm »
Hello,

Can you please recommend me some cheap BGAs I could order at mouser / farnell to practice my soldering skills? I will create a PCB containing a couple of those so really no limitations on what they would be.

I was thinking BGA-36 to 96 max. I don't think I will ever have a need to solder something bigger.

One idea I had was to create a uC breakout board because then it would be easy to verify that all the balls have been soldered correctly by outputting a square wave or something. Needless to say I don't have an xray to check if I did a good job.

Thanks!
 

Offline elecman14

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Re: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2019, 05:11:53 pm »
Not sure if having a working micro controller would verify all the balls are soldered. You could check out these but they do fit in your cheap criteria https://www.topline.tv/drawings/pdf/WLP/WLP36T.3C-DC067D.pdf You could also try to find something that could do jtag boundary scan. That would be cheaper but probably able to verify more of the pins. Also BGA mirrors are helpful for verification without an X-ray.
 

Offline newbie666Topic starter

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Re: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2019, 05:37:12 pm »
Topline kits look good, especially this one: http://www.topline.tv/963000_Kit.html
I can't find any distributors though and minimum order for export is >1000USD :(
 

Offline TheDane

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Re: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2019, 06:08:53 pm »
Grap a bunch of cheap SBC's with a BGA the size you'd like to practice on.
Lift it - put it back on, and see if it still works  :-//
 

Offline james_s

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Re: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2019, 06:12:18 pm »
To do that you have to re-ball the ICs.

You could just use the parametric search on Digikey, Mouser, etc and search for BGA packages then sort by price.
 
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Offline TheDane

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Re: Cheap BGAs to practice soldering
« Reply #5 on: January 22, 2019, 09:33:30 am »
Reballing - use a stencil, and some solderpaste or use the right sized ball(s).

https://www.google.com/search?q=bga+stencil&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X

From what I know, it is not always BGA's come pre-balled - so it is a great skill to (also) possess if you want to be great at soldering BGA's.
 


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