Re-8500

[Dan Collins]

dexterlet,
The manual is not very helpful. Only for basics.
TC1 should be close to, or touching the BGA. What we are trying to achive is a max temp to the BGA, so TC'ing it is optimal.
TC2 is for the bottom as close to the center of the BGA as possible without resting on a ground plane. TC2 is used for the preheating temps in the calculation of the profile.

The following does not reflect any individual, just a general "rule of thumb"
It is best if one learns about the basics of reflow temps and profiles. A good place to start is the document IPC-7095B, but many other good sources exist on the web. Just look for "BGA profile" and stay away from blogs and forums for research data. Blogs and forums should be just a sharing source for those already familar with the principals of BGA reflow. Learn the theory, then come here and share your results.

[meeky87]

Hey Dan, i'm just having a question, why you use the TC1 to be on the lower side of the board, and TC2 is above the target IC??,, what i know and currently using is that TC1 is on the upside, while TC2 is downside.

[meeky87]

Originally Posted by dexterlt

Interesting notes. Jovy thermocouple placement guide tells the following: "TC1 beside the targeted component.
TC2 underside the targeted component.
Both the 2 thermocouple is essential to Run the
process."

I'm new user of RE-8500 and my experience is not long with the station. Is it only a mistake in guide or every user can make his own interpretation of using soldering station ?

I contacted there technical support, they told me that the optimum usage is to put TC1 over PCB, while TC2 underneath the target spot of the PCB while running profiles.

[Dan Collins]

Yes, TC1 is for top of board and TC2 for underside as stated in the later posts. Sorry for confusion.

[Dan Collins]

for smaller jobs I recommend the RE7500, but if you want more automation, then go with the RE8500

[duke2013]

hye dan. 1 question, how u modified the TC's? i use flexible omega sensor for tc touch close to board. because the main tc is tc1 right the tc1 is follow by tc2 to reach the stage tempreture. i got not 100% success rate. can u post here your profile for lift gpu laptop in lead free and place back with leaded profile?

[Dan Collins]

Just use the standard lead free profile and set time to 40secs for lifting the BGA and 20secs for reflowing. make sure your TC's are stable attached to the board. I use omega 5SRTC-GG-K-24-36

[duke2013]

hye dan i try your profile at post #1 . i got success but lift the gpu at 140-145c at stage preheat .what wrong? then place back new gpu at 170c. is that sensor error or jovy problem.

[underbird_gsm]

jovy sensors are bollls........it ,-20c error

[vad111]

Originally Posted by Dan Collins

TC1 is for upperside maximum heat spot. Best to use BGA non metallic land area.
TC2 is for underside of board under the BGA. Do not place on a ground plane or readings will be inaccurate.
Preheating Stage Powers: Sets heater power until soaking stage is reached.

Preheat temp: TC1 temp until change to soaking powers.
Soak end Temp: TC1 temp until change to reflow powers.
Peak temp: TC2 Maximum temp allowed.
Peak zone time: Hold time from reaching peak temp. Reflow power is turned off after this time
Alarm temp: Only an alarm when set temp is reached on TC2. No control of powers.

During reflow cycle, system uses TC1 to control lower heater powers to match TC2 temp.

Hey Dan,
First of all I admire the jig you built for thermocouples!
I got this machine few days ago and it is somewhat confusing.

I understand that TC2 controls lower heaters, in another words TS2 controls preheating while TS1 controls upper heater, so more logical would be placing TC2 much further from the targeted chip to keep the whole board constantly at "preheating stage" stated temperature - let's say 150C. Otherwise TS2 gets to the soaking stage and closes lower heaters, so the whole board gets cooler while BGA chip gets all the heat from the top which is liable to get overheated. There are some boards that will start bending because of temperature differences between the wide board area and the targeted chip area.
Also I paid attention that let's say if I state preheating stage at 150C the lower heater turns off at 167C, I don't understand why....
Also the standard profile and some other profiles puts all heaters at 100% which is too much in my opinion. I think 50%-70% is enough for heaters to do their job.
The most confusing here is how TS1 and TS2 controls heaters and the placement of the TS2.
Can you please clarify that for me?
Thank you very much!

[duke2013]

the problem is jovy re8500 need 2 tc run together. if one tc fail to get same reading u become headache. example tc1 is 200 then tc2 is 225 where 225 is your maximum set reflow temp in your profile. what happen is tc1 must archieve tc2 target value and the same time tc2 may reach above 225c maybe 240c . when reach above your maximum setting may be your chip or board damage. my conclusion is jovy need r n d again this model. also bad in design for thermocouple placement method. people didnt like messy job with tape everywhere just to hold thermocouple.

[bloto22]

Hi.

Bought this machine last week.. been playing around, I place tc2 40mm away from BGA that keeps preheather for a bit longer, most of the time side heaters been on instead of middle one....


However temp been going up on TC1 which been set on profile for 220, ive stopped it when I relased that machine will not stop untill tc2 reach 220 set temp....

So we can swap tc1 with tc2 or other way. Both must reach set temp in profiles....

I notice on jedec profile that best high of top heather is at "4" At "5" pump a lot more power from top heater to keep going up temp and popcorn BGA.

I do really like jedec standard but, it is a shame that jovy havent made that tc2 idependet for example to keep middle heather on... and when tc1 reach 220, should wait max 10s and turn off top heather.... to avoid going higher than 230...

Any one by pass problem of tc2 ? for automatic profiles ? (I can go around with manual controll, but this is not the way of doing it)

Will be nice to have option to keep middle heather on like in jovy 7500...

Regards

[DGibbs]

I bought this brand new on my own in December of 2012 after reading that it was the best one outside of spending ten-thousand dollars or more for an industrial version. I read about all of the wonderful features of using profiles to repair my stack of laptops.

I've been in the electronics repair field for 22 years now so I know more than a little about soldering. I didn't expect this to be "easy", but that's why I always research and try to buy the best tools that I can afford. I have a full-time job already as a repair tech at a busy TV station. My laptop went bad and I found out about BGA repair. I thought that I could buy this machine and make some extra money on the side within a few months once I became proficient in repairing my own stuff. What I've found is pretty much the opposite.

I will preface my rant by saying that the physical hardware is of good quality and the fit and finish is very good.

Okay on to the rant....

This RE-8500 was/is advertised as (using my best analogy) a jeweler's hammer when in reality it is just a ten-pound sledge hammer. I've read as much as I can in the last year and watched every Youtube video that I can find and I still come away with the same questions and little to no answers for the same things that other good techs are asking.

There are a handful of guys on this forum and elsewhere that have learned how to WORK AROUND the "limitations" of this machine. With a good tool, any average tech should be able to hit the ground running within a week at most of starting to use this machine. When I hear someone like Dan Collins say that it took him several months to a year to start getting good results, something is WRONG with the tool we're using. I watch Yudi Heryanto's videos using a stopwatch to observe the temp-rise rates. That should only be necessary to verify that a set-rate is operating properly.....if it had the ability to set one.

From what I've read and seen, most of the guys that are happy with this machine use it in manual/free mode. This is counterintuitive to the whole reason of the inclusion of PROFILES on the systems. You shouldn't have to sacrifice boards that you are TRYING TO FIX in order to work around the latent shortcomings of a tool that costs so much.

Shortcomings:
1) No way to set the degree-celsius per second rate of temperature rise. This was my first hint that something was wrong. I looked at all of the profiles in the Jovy PC Suite editor and found no way to define this rate. I can set maximum temps and a peak dwell time, but without being able to set temp-rise rates, I'm forced into heavy experimentation - instead of the machine using good CLOSED-LOOP control between the TCs and the heaters to take the guess-work away. Result? Scrapped boards

2) No indication in the profiles of what height to set the UH at. This wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing if the closed-loop control was really good. This is what I expect of an engineer who designs heater control circuits - HE does the heavy-lifting in the design to make things work right.

3) No apparent way to set temp limits for either the lower or upper heaters. When I've ran the profiles, I've watched temps climb above the preset temps. I want to preheat the board to 150 or 180....not 225, 230 or more.

4) No way to turn off one of the side heaters when it is not needed. The left lower heater just cranks up to what looks to be 100% which draws more current and then stresses my 5000W step-up transfomer and sometimes causes it to trip out in the middle of a profile which then necessitates another profile run, another heating cycle, and most likely another scrapped BGA IC.

5) The instruction manual was hard to find online and is not good - in all fairness, great manual-making is an art that was lost somewhere in the early 1990's.

There is a reality in electronics repair that certain makes and models of equipment fail in a certain way all of the time. The Xbox360, PS3, HP DV Laptops etc. There are always the pioneer techs who are the first to figure out the problem and eventually share their findings within our community - this is how a lot of the profiles for the 8500 have come about and that is great. But you shouldn't have to be a repair "alchemist" and spend a year wrecking repairable items trying to work around a much-less-than-expected system.

Jovy should have, and still needs to, provide real, detailed, and good training videos of how to use this machine - not rely on the kindness of paying customers to maybe give some insight into how to get good consistent results. They could even pay or give free machines/supplies to folks like Dan Collins, Trion, linears4, etc to produce really useful videos for the rest of us buyers.

There's a lot more that I still have fine-point questions about, but this post is already huge. I'm sure some folks will read this and just call me an incompetent "noob", but perhaps others may agree with me too. I don't expect any tool to be 100% for every situation (that's what the manual/free-mode is for).

As this RE-8500 stands, it is like a piece of alien technology dropped to earth and guys like me are left trying to figure out how to fly it and not crash into buildings everytime. I just hope this isn't an "abandon-ware" type of device and that the masters of it will make some really good videos of how to use it well.

Rant off

Dan G

[duke2013]

i can lifted the bga without damage the bga and no popcorn but pad under bga got bubble.
my setting all power heater use 55% power and peak temp is 230. any advice?

[PrimeTech]

You got bubbles because you didn't prebake the board. You're lucky you didn't get bubbles on the chip too.

Also I recommend this thermocouple and never use the stock ones that come with the machine.

Thermo Couples : Thermocouple - Omega 40AWG Mini K-Type