Cyclone 5 recovered from scrap boards

[Boscoe]

I totally understand the perspective of saving parts to save money as I've been there before - on a budget. However looking back I really don't think there's much value in doing so depending on how you approach your electronics. For me, I'm looking to use the electronics as a tool to complete a project, I'm not looking for a project to fit the electronics so the chances of undertaking a project that happens to be able to utilise an FPGA I found is extremely rare. Quite often recovered electronics do not work 100% which only leads to frustration, wasted time and money. Personally, I suggest to just spend $30 on an FPGA. It's going to be a tiny fraction of your total build cost and will potentially save a lot of time and heart ache. It's also the best way to practice electronic design.

Edit: Also, why bother spending loads of time attempting to re-ball FPGAs? It has next to zero value for general knowledge or skills in a career. Spend your $30 on an FPGA and use those 10 hours you've saved learning how to make badass FPGA designs! Top FPGA designers can charge lots of $!

[Miti]

I totally understand the perspective of saving parts to save money as I've been there before - on a budget. However looking back I really don't think there's much value in doing so depending on how you approach your electronics. For me, I'm looking to use the electronics as a tool to complete a project, I'm not looking for a project to fit the electronics so the chances of undertaking a project that happens to be able to utilise an FPGA I found is extremely rare. Quite often recovered electronics do not work 100% which only leads to frustration, wasted time and money. Personally, I suggest to just spend $30 on an FPGA. It's going to be a tiny fraction of your total build cost and will potentially save a lot of time and heart ache. It's also the best way to practice electronic design.

Edit: Also, why bother spending loads of time attempting to re-ball FPGAs? It has next to zero value for general knowledge or skills in a career. Spend your $30 on an FPGA and use those 10 hours you've saved learning how to make badass FPGA designs! Top FPGA designers can charge lots of $!

I understand and I agree, however, my intention was not to reball these parts to learn reballing, I see that done at work almost every day. My intention was to learn designing boards with BGAs, find alternative ways to reuse some of these salvaged parts, and learn from others experience.
On the other hand, these are not $30 parts. They cost over $300 new. They could make pretty powerful development boards in the hands of the right engineer. Probably not mine.