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General electronics ??


stratotak

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Not a guitar or amp question but a question about capacitors heat range before blowing up.Its about a Xbox 360.For those not familiar with issues with them the earlier ones put off alot of heat.The board would flex and the lead free solder after time would crack and you would get Red Ring of Death.Getto way of fixing it was to cause it to over heat which would cause board to flex enough and solder would make enough connection to work,for awhile. Might last a day might last a month or so If lucky.

 

Anyway mine is is on it;s last leg and trying to give it a last chance fix by baking it in oven to reflow the solder.Basiclly use aluminim foil and cover all the parts like capacitors and plastic bit to protect them from heat and bake it at 250 for awhile.But all this is Youtube getto fixes coming from 16-18 year olds.No real elctronics repair man who really know what htey are talking about. What temps are to high before a cap will blow or be damaged. Videos like this.

 

[video=youtube;W5vWmgIbE3k]

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Well I already went and did it. Used aluminum duct tape and about 4 layers of aluminum foil.Baked it at 250 for 10 minutes in my Black & DEcker toaster oven. Seems to work. Dont know how long it will last though.Hour,day,week,month.Watching movie on CRackle with it right now.

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I don't think you're reflowing solder at 250 F. Maybe like you said the board could be flexing, or something is happening in the microchips or the other components. Interesting that this works.

 

Lead free solder melts at 217 I believe. I've seen videos on how they make motherboards. After a robot arm places all the little tiny components on the board it goes through a flow oven which is like about 10 feet long and goes from 150 up to 240 to melt the solder and then back down .

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTOBQsJl2iCPYX_-AXONgH

 

Video on how one is made.

[video=youtube;Va3Bfjn4inA]

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Unless you chemically strip the board of any sealent and refluxed the board before heating, all you likely did was

weaken all the solder joints. Solder doesnt flow without flux.

 

You are luckey the board works after heating like that. Its not the caps I'd be worried about its all the

chips and transistors. Inside the chips there are wires thinner than a strand of hair.

Overheating will either expand the casing and break their connections or damage their connections.

 

When boards are wave soldered, the components barely get warm and if the board is multi layerd

which many are to save space, heating one side doesnt heat the connections between the layers

and on the component side.

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Unless you chemically strip the board of any sealent and refluxed the board before heating, all you likely did was

weaken all the solder joints. Solder doesnt flow without flux.


You are luckey the board works after heating like that. Its not the caps I'd be worried about its all the

chips and transistors. Inside the chips there are wires thinner than a strand of hair.

Overheating will either expand the casing and break their connections or damage their connections.


When boards are wave soldered, the components barely get warm and if the board is multi layerd

which many are to save space, heating one side doesnt heat the connections between the layers

and on the component side.

 

 

Well all i know is it didnt work before but works now. LIke I said dont know how long it will last .It's not a permanent fix.That requires reballing the GPU .To get that done is almost the cost of a refurbished one at Best Buy so makes no sense to have it reballed.

Some other tutorials do show dripping flux under the GPU for a better flow but I didnt have any.

 

If heating up the small components could damage them I dont think companies would used a oven to flow the solder.But that's how hey do it.Granted there not using a toaster oven and they are is controlled by computer so the components arent heated beyond what is needed to do the job.

 

Next time it red rings Ill toast it again but use some liquid flux.

But with out going out and spending hundreds to thousands on a rework station this is the best way to fix it. Heat gun tends to warp the board.Baking it heats up the board more evenly.

 

Like I said.Not the right way to fix it but what you gonna do.

 

Microsoft brags about how many units they have sold but seems to ignore the fact that people have had to buy 2-3 of them because they die.Well atleast the early ones.

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Microsoft brags about how many units they have sold but seems to ignore the fact that people have had to buy 2-3 of them because they die.Well atleast the early ones.

 

 

Call me old fashioned, but I can't understand why anyone would buy 2 or 3 of a product that had failed and had a reputation of failing.

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I gave one last effort. I cranked up toaster to 450 F. Thats about 230 C. Lead free solder flows at about 220 C. That is more than enough to reflow the solder. Its working again.When I did it at 250 F which is like 100 C. I think all it did was get some of the flex out of board for solder joints to connect and then it flexed back. At 450 F it should have reflowed the solder joints. I kept it in the toaster oven for 10 minutes.

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