I have a student who needs a very compact Linux system for his project. He’s selected a Pocket Beagle and has modified the Pocket Beagle PCB to have a couple of additional components. The next step is to have the board made and mount the Octavo chip on the board. His gotten a quote of some $500 just to mount the chip.
Ouch!
So we’ve decided to mount the chip ourselves. We have a reflow oven and an x-ray machine.
What suggestions do you all have that will improve the odds in getting it mounted the first time?
You can also ask at local laptop or phone repair shops. If they do more than just replacing broken screens, they should have tools and expertise to mount a BGA chip, and probably will do it much cheaper than $500.
It’s not so hard to do by eye if you have good markings on the board and a decent stencil. I have done this myself countless times. Just make sure there’s enough room nearby to look and see if you lined it up properly to match rows. I managed to be off by a row once and that was unfortunate.
OSH stencils sells cheap mylar stencils that work fine. And their instructions show how to do basically this. A BGA is a tough package to start on but it’s definitely do able. Might be worth getting a cheaper socket or something to practice on first.
You don’t need X-ray though, I used to think that too but it’s really unnecessary. For a small prototype run at least. Definitely not for a student project.
Hope that helps. Your student will learn a lot doing this.