Okay so rather than actually respond to any of the flaws in his arguments that I pointed out he just decided to ignore me so I guess I'll just continue pointing out more issues in your """""professional"""" rebuttal. As stated before I don't have a dog in this fight, I am not an authority in electronics repair and would just like know what can be done to keep these things alive and kicking. Things in bold are direct quotes from your posts anything else in quotations are not.
1.
"I have no vested interest in reballing"
Thank you for helpfully linking your instagram page, I know this may seem unrelated but the posts on it directly contradict that original quote as we can see that not only do you own a BGA rework station (meaning its significant enough that you would make a major purchase for the purpose of being able to perform reballing work yourself) but that a significant portion of your posts about reballing seem to be related to either the PS3 or the PS4, including this post where you claim you
"don't even bother reballing CECHA01 anymore." because
"If a reflow doesn't work, they go in the bin." What a very professional and scientific method to determining causes of failure
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdddcf_lCNY/
1b.
"I had less than 10 returns for any reason out of the last 100 fat boys I've reballed."
A minimum of 100 PS3 fats doesn't exactly seem like a small number especially enough to claim you
"have no vested interest"
2b.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj71An6lwLE/ "Another 100 PS3 systems in the books. And I forgot to order more blades until I was empty. Oops." clearly you don't do much work on PS3's I guess, just enough for the number to be in the hundreds
2.
"EVERY device with ANY BGA package that gets hot will eventually form stress cracks" and
"The PS3 has BGA connections, therefore that study applies to the PS3. It's a purely mechanical problem, the circuit surrounding it doesn't matter.
At no point has anyone here denied this claim, the issue with your assertion that this is the cause of the YLOD error is that even based on the studies you shared this should be a monumentally big issue affecting literally every PC, console, etc that manages to reach above 70C. All electronics should fail within 500 temperature cycles, according to that study it could be as low as 243 temp cycles and as you say
"The PS3 has 10 times that amount on the RSX, on a bigger package which can flex even more." meaning the failure rate should actually be even faster than the 243 in that study.
I can just as easily find studies showing
"No failures after 3000 cycles between -40°C and 125°C"
https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/22657/2-brinkfeldt-presentation.pdf
I can just as easily find studies showing "No failures after 3000 cycles between -40°C and 125°C"
https://energiforskmedia.blob.core.windows.net/media/22657/2-brinkfeldt-presentation.pdf
3.
"I can see the tell tale signs of either stress cracks, a "head in pillow" defect, or a "non-wet" defect"
The Head in pillow defects that you posted seem to be related to failures that happen direct from the factory, the study has nothing to do with the BGA stress cracking related to temp cycles which is what you keep asserting. The title of the study is even called
"Defects and Mitigation through Assembly Process Modifications and Control" here's an excerpt from the opening paragraph that makes this more clear
"Often these insufficient or intermittent solder joint defects go undetected during manufacturing despite inspection with conventional X-ray systems. They also are insidious reliability defects that often escape the normal testing procedures and fail at the end user site."
4. Your reasoning for why the slims stopped failing is that
"Better designs, lower TDP, better manufacturing methods. It's kind of expected that they learn from their mistakes and cut down on manufacturing defects that lead to premature failure."
A.
"Better designs" The slims have the same BGA layout as the fats do for both the CELL and the RSX, they also have smaller heatsinks with fewer heatpipes and a smaller surface area which ties neatly into the next point.
B.
"lower TDP" The slims kept failing until the tokins were removed in the 21XX revision the TDP drop between the 2 of them is also only 20-25W. The PS4 pro, Xbox One X and essentially all other high end GPUs also have much higher TDPs than the original CECHA/B/C/E models which at their peak only draw about 230W across both chips while high end GPUs and consoles with their APUs pack all that wattage into a single die not the 2 found in the PS3/360
C.
"better manufacturing methods" If the manufacturing methods were put into place in the slim revision then why are you still reballing ps4's which began production 4 years after the original slims? Did sony just happen to forget that it was the only major issue killing their consoles prematurely? Did they lose the formula to the better solder alloy?
5.
"Why did they switch from a Samsung flash to a Macronix? They made a new device, they pick new parts."
I agree that their change of components doesn't necessarily imply the old ones were all failing but the more logical reason to this isn't so flippant. The tantalum caps used in the slims are smaller which given that the purpose of the slim is to make it well, slim, makes more sense.
6.
"A lower temperature means a longer life - the "rule of 10s" regarding temperatures is generally that a MTBF is doubled for each 10C drop. So, we're talking THOUSANDS of heat cycles."
You didn't actually provide any evidence for this claim or really any of your claims that you're some kind of authority on the subject of BGAs.
I would still be willing to believe this if you didn't completely ignore the fact that although the PS3 doesn't reach 100C, many high end PC components DO, and quite frequently. It's extremely common for things like gaming laptops, macbooks, and workstation GPUs to reach 95-100C under load so logically rather than the
"THOUSANDS" you claim the PS3 should withstand since it only hits a mere 80C every one of those high end or poorly cooled devices should be toast after less than a year of use.
7. You claim that you don't repair slims because
"I don't buy Slims since the profit margin sucks, so I don't know anything about them."
https://www.instagram.com/p/BROwWs4FVyk/
As we can see here you're repairing a DS lite which from what I can see in the sold listings page on ebay go for only $20. But that's fine since you claim you're
"not in it for the money." However then your justification for not knowing anything about slims doesnt add up. It seems to me like the more likely scenario is that you don't know how to fix them and after a few reballings didn't get you anywhere you just gave up. Oh wait, heres a picture of yours
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIWQF92jSCE/ with a stack of 8 superslims
"Doin' work #consolerepair"
You really love posting actual studies with actual evidence and I really do appreciate that, but aside from a photo of a bachelors degree in computer engineering from 2006 on your ebay page you haven't presented any professional credentials to support the idea that you can interpret these studies in any meaningful way, for all we know you could have focused on cryptography during your university program. We can also see by the posts on your Instagram page that you run your entire business out of what looks like your living room, garage, and basement. The brand of your reballing station seems to just be some random cheap Chinese brand that sells on sites like alibaba.
It doesn't exactly surprise me when your $800 rework station catches fire
https://www.instagram.com/p/BPqHskpjgwK/
If you were a professional you wouln't be buying from a company that uses literal comicsans on their website (
http://www.easybga.com/en/achi-hr56...cal-alignment-bga-repair-station_l66_p14.html).
That makeshift fume hood seemingly constructed from saranwrap, scrap metal, and 2x4s doesn't seem very healthy by the way
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5YOLWnfiz/
Heres some video proof that his reballing station and workbench are literally inside his home.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjKjxPolj-6/
Lastly, why do you have a photo on your instagram of you with a torn off tokin saying
"The TOKIN massacre is finished. Long live tantalum"?
https://www.instagram.com/p/Blsnw_Hl7Of/
Given you claim you're 35 on your instagram account if/when you do return I would expect a more adult response than the ones you've given so far. Please also note that I have not insulted or personally attacked you in any way. Everything surrounding the PS3specialist guy suggests he's a scammer even on his own youtube videos you've got people asking "bro I sent you my console and I haven't heard from you in weeks" so I am interested to know how much you charge for a reball and where I can purchase that service.
.