exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

stephen_usher wrote: 03 Aug 2023 13:39:lol:

Didn't go boom, neither did it output any of the required voltages...

Waiting for more parts now, specifically an HDMI encoder.

What did Ivanova say in Babylon 5? "No boom today boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow. BOOM!" ;-)

stephen_usher wrote: 10 Aug 2023 11:57 What did Ivanova say in Babylon 5? "No boom today boom tomorrow. Always boom tomorrow. BOOM!" ;-)

Ahh, a fellow Babylon 5 fan :)

Always BOOM tomorrow :)

So, I made a bit of an impulsive purchase, kind of based on the fact that a work colleague offered me a dead PS3 and PS4 for free, and since I really want to get more into console repairs as well, and also because it is something I find very enjoyable.

What is it you ask? A BGA rework station:


I'm really getting the hang of the hot air stuff, and this seemed logical, plus it wasn't as expensive as I was expecting. It heats both the top and bottom of the board, with the top heating with a profile that slowly ramps up the heat. You can have up to 10 profiles, 0-9, so it's quite flexible.

On it at the moment is my blue light of death PS4, and I've managed to get together a profile that's let me reflow the APU, so the main IC. I doubt this has fixed it, though I will try when it cools down, but I kind of consider this board as a donor anyway, so if it fails it's no big deal, but it has at least let me get used to setting a suitable profile.

It's quite cool, you can see the solder balls liquifying when you look at the edge of the APU, then it's a quick nudge and surface tension pulls it back in.

I also want to try and re-ball the APU as I have a suitable stencil, I just need to get some solder balls.

All most enjoyable fun.

Good luck. I'm looking forward to reading about your success.

I've tried to repair lots of 1st generation PS3's (with hardware PS2 backwards compatibility, the only ones worth saving) at work with a technician with decades of experience. All yellow light of death.

Success rate was very low. The issue I felt was the PCB bends with normal operating heat and is irreparable.

alexh wrote: 13 Aug 2023 18:31 Good luck. I'm looking forward to reading about your success.

I've tried to repair lots of 1st generation PS3's (with hardware PS2 backwards compatibility, the only ones worth saving) at work with a technician with decades of experience. All yellow light of death.

Success rate was very low. The issue I felt was the PCB bends with normal operating heat and is irreparable.

A lot of what I read suggests that the PS3 CPU construction is the problem for the ylod, so I don't have high expectations, but it may be useful for parts.

What I'm hoping for is that I may have at least one working PS4 at the end of it all.

I have no pretence of being an expert tbh, but you gotta start somewhere.

This sounds like exciting times ahead.

stephen_usher wrote: 13 Aug 2023 21:01 This sounds like exciting times ahead.

Indeed 😁

Nice stuff you have !

HigashiJun wrote: 14 Aug 2023 02:18 Nice stuff you have !

I'm very lucky to be able to get this stuff, I know, and to have the space for a good retro setup and workshop area.

As part of my testing I pulled the APU off this board last night and I'm going to attempt a re-ball. I have the stencil but no solder balls, so they are next on the shopping list.


I'm not hopeful this will change much at this point in time in terms of fixing anything on this board, it was pretty dead to begin with, but it's worth it for the practice and to work on techniques using the rework station.

I learned a lot yesterday, such as how to modify heating profiles, bottom heater temp, top heater positioning, and top heater thermocouple positioning, so it was definitely a school day :)

I also used it as a test board for reflowing the RAM ICs using hot air, and also for testing my skills with an HDMI port replacement.

Interestingly there are some oxidised pads under the APU, and I'm pretty sure it suffered a major overheat due to the massively blocked heatsink I found.

I still think I need to tweak the profile slightly, but I do know it at least works.

It's also been a useful donor board too, and has provided useful case parts.