Mounting Octavo SiP on Homemade Pocket Beagle

[Mark A. Yoder]

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?

Thanks...

--Mark

[Jacek Radzikowski]

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.

Jacek.

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[evilwulfie]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/OK-Industries-SMT-8500-SMT-Manual-Placement-Machine/123087954705?hash=item1ca89d2311:g:q4oAAOSwl4Va2L3P:rk:9:pf:0

yes more expensive than 500 bux, but to place that you would have a tough time
doing it by hand unless your rock solid and no shaking.

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[Pablo Rodriguez]

i had success with a cheap stencil from oshstencil, solder paste and a reflow oven, but first i tryed without solder paste and screw a pair of IC

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[Jim F]

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. 

Jim