How to make homemade reballing, reflow to a cell phone (resolder plate, heat)

Reflow or reflow soldering is a procedure that is done to reestablish the loss of contact between the components of an electronic board. Basically, the components are “solved” and this is as simple as putting the electronic board in an oven. Although it could be called a home reballing, it is not the same and obviously this method mentioned here carries the risk of damaging the board and electronic components of your cell phone, so proceed with caution.

You will want to do a soldering of the board of your cell phone in case there is a contact failure on the board of your device, which in some cases causes the cell phone not to start or turn on normally. This was exactly what happened in equipment like the LG G4 or Nexus 5X, which came with this factory fault. The manufacturer of both teams, LG, recognized this defect (although it did not want to repair it in some countries), indicating that the problem is due to a loss of contact between components. The homemade solution that some users found to this problem was simple: heat the electronic board of the device.

Diagnosis

If your cell phone is constantly restarting, it is most likely a software failure, something that can be corrected with a simple reset (LG, Motorola). It is unlikely that your cell phone needs a reballing or reflow process due to a loss of contact between components. However, if you think this is the case you should put the cell phone in the freezer for about 6 or 7 minutes, in an airtight plastic bag. If after that the device boots up, then it may indeed require doing the following.

Heating the electronic board in an oven

On the website Dev With Alex, the software engineer Alexander Gee You have detailed what you have done to fix the contact failure on your LG device. Basically, the process consists of remove the main electronic board from the mobile. Then you have to put it in the oven for 6 and a half minutes, at a temperature of 195 degrees centigrade (390 degrees Fahrenheit). This should reset the welds and fix the issue.

The iFixit page has step-by-step guides for disassembling many mobiles, including the LG G4 Y Nexus 5X. Fortunately these are easy kits to disassemble.

After deducing that the fault was in the RAM contacts of his Nexus 5X, Gee turned the electronic board “upside down”, with the RAM contacts touching. aluminum foil (previously wrinkled to limit the amount of heat transferred). This set was put on a totally flat utensil, safe to cook in the oven (one ceramic saucepan ideally). It should be heated for 6 and a half minutes at a temperature of 195 degrees Celsius.

If after that the plate is inspected and everything looks good, wait for it to cool down and arms again from the device. Hopefully it should power up and work normally.

Not only has this person been successful with this process. In our article talking about this problem with LG equipment, at least four people commented that it worked. Each used their own variant of the method. Some put the electronic board to heat for 5 to 10 minutes in an oven at 200 degrees Celsius. Another put the plate to heat on a griddle for 15 minutes. The more technical one mentioned having heated the card for 20 seconds, probably using a heat gun.

The disadvantage

In Alexander Gee’s article, some users mentioned that the fault returned after a few hours doing this procedure. This is not strange. As I said, technically this procedure is called reflow soldering The reflow and it is not recommended by repair pages like reballingspain.com. On this website (currently not available) it was explained that not a permanent solution. Furthermore, this “reflow” process can irreversibly damage the solders and the printed circuit of the board. What they recommend there is to do a process of Rework The integral solder of the component (better known as reballing). This job already requires specialized machines and you will need to take your device to a repair center to have this job done.

Only as a last alternative

This homemade solution of reflow solders will void the device warranty. Just opt ​​for it as the last alternative. Before doing so, it is better to process the warranty with the manufacturer of the device, if it is still valid. You can also request the repair at a cost from the manufacturing company itself or from a reputable technical service.

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