I am guessing that it takes special machinery, right?

Or is there a place in the area that does this?

You need a reflow oven for that. The guy that stocks the electronic vending machine has one. Sorry, I can't remember his name.

There's a toaster oven by the classroom I was hoping to turn into one in case you want to take a stab at that.

This is hard to do with professional grade stuff sometimes, Versa in Minneapolis area might be able to do it http://www.versaco.com/ not sure though, but they will be able to point you in the right direction.

I got a stencil made and purchased some solder paste and did some reading up on how to use a toaster oven to do this. It looks entirely doable so I am going to give it a try, probably with an unmodified oven. But if there is anyone who has any experience and would like to save me some potential headaches I would welcome their assistance.

Good luck, never done it myself, so I can't help. I have always considered bga for hobby not worth the effort.

Here is something that might be useful http://dangerousprototypes.com/2012/03/ ... revisited/

I have scrapped a few Motherboards with BGA sockets, is it possible to reuse them?

Also not having looked at what mods a toaster over would need, what would you do? Add a residual heat element like firebrick or cement? That could hold in heat, and help disburse it better? Maybe add a hole to help heat up the oven with a heat gun?

Guess I had better go read, these must be basic guesses.

Let me know if I should save a couple BGA Motherboards to see if the socket can be re-used

Brad

(Edit, I made a bad assumption that BGA was single sized for CPU's, now that I have seen the video I know more. But the offer to grab a couple Motherboards still stands)

I was just going to hang a thermometer inside the oven and plot the temperature curve and then use that information to determine how long to keep it turned on. when the board is inside. I hadn't thought about firebricks or heat guns. Is my way seriously flawed?

I don't need any BGA sockets, but thanks.

I truly have no idea, I was thinking a pizza oven (brick) would be ideal because it can sustain a temperature via thermal mass for hours, so adding fire brick/cement to a box with a element would make sense.

Even the Kiln would be idea for this, but costly to do just a board.


Now if somebody wants to try to reflow something, I have a dead Xbox sitting on my shelf that could be a test run. (though I want to be there to see it happen)

Booka