{"id":331,"date":"2019-08-12T10:21:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T15:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=331"},"modified":"2019-08-12T10:21:40","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T15:21:40","slug":"reflow-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=331","title":{"rendered":"Reflow Madness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past several months, I did a few more reflow repairs with my trusty heat gun.\u00a0 I successfully resurrected a Beats Pill bluetooth speaker but it failed again after a few weeks.\u00a0 Another Pill is still working okay.\u00a0 I rescued a 15″ MacBook Pro with video problems but had no success with a 17-incher.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, my own 17″ MacBook Pro, which had been limping along with disabled AMD graphics (thanks to Cody Krieger\u2019s excellent gfxCardStatus<\/a>\u00a0menu bar app), went fully dim after a reboot.\u00a0 This was my excuse to hang up the heat gun for good and invest in a cheap Chinese reflow oven<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At $369, the Happybuy Reflow Soldering Machine is very cheap for a reflow oven but pricey given its design flaws and build quality.\u00a0 The oven I purchased is an example of the\u00a0T962A design, which is produced by several different manufacturers.\u00a0 Google “T962A” and you’ll find various hardware fixes as well as improved firmware.<\/p>\n

As shipped, the T962A is both unpleasant and dangerous to operate.\u00a0 At this stage, I’ve made two modifications that should be considered mandatory<\/p>\n

The first problem is that the metal case is not properly connected to ground, posing the potential risk of electrocution!\u00a0 This is a widely known (and easy to fix) issue.\u00a0 I’m amazed that units with such a serious defect continue to be shipped.<\/p>\n

The second problem is that a heat shield is secured with what appears to be paper masking tape.\u00a0 It produces noxious fumes and smoke when the oven heats up.\u00a0 This is also easy to fix by replacing the tape with Kapton tape<\/a>.\u00a0 LOL, on Amazon the oven and tape are “frequently bought together.”<\/p>\n

There are other fixes available to improve the UI and performance that I haven’t bothered with.\u00a0 After fixing the ground and tape issues, the oven performs fine for repair work.\u00a0 I use profile #3 for lead free solder.<\/p>\n

To date, I’ve had one success and one failure with the oven.\u00a0 I wrecked the aforementioned Beats Pill by melting the line in and out jacks.\u00a0 These are apparently installed after the SMD components are reflowed.\u00a0 On the other hand, my ailing MacBook Pro was a complete success.\u00a0 Time will tell if this repair lasts longer than the heat gun fix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past several months, I did a few more reflow repairs with my trusty heat gun.\u00a0 I successfully resurrected a Beats Pill bluetooth speaker but it failed again after a few weeks.\u00a0 Another Pill is still working okay.\u00a0 I rescued a 15″ MacBook Pro with video problems but had no success with a 17-incher. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7,12,4,5,21],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8sNNV-5l","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":307,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=307","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":0},"title":"Resurrecting a 17\" MacBook Pro with a heat gun","date":"March 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So the dreaded day came when my beloved \"late 2011\" 17 inch MacBook Pro died.\u00a0 The screen wigged out while it was in use, then it would only boot halfway before stopping at a gray screen.\u00a0 From experience, I knew that it was suffering from the dreaded AMD GPU logic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=115","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":1},"title":"Importing RadioRA 2 devices into Indigo","date":"October 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In a recent post, I wrote about a plugin I made for Indigo to add support for Lutron RadioRA 2 devices.\u00a0 I can't say enough good things about this software.\u00a0 It's rock solid reliable and extremely flexible.\u00a0 Among other things, I have Indigo set up to email a picture to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Electrical"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=304","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":2},"title":"13\" Retina MacBook Pro Retina won't boot, fan running full blast","date":"March 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"So this repair is mildly interesting. \u00a0The user's late 2012 MacBook Pro just wouldn't start up one morning. \u00a0It would get as far as a \"missing boot disk\" icon and shortly thereafter the fans started running full blast. Apple Diagnostics recognized that an SSD was installed but was unable to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=69","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":3},"title":"Did you hear about the Rabbi who didn't charge for circumcisions?","date":"August 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He only took tips! I don't charge friends for repairing their electronics, which I'm always glad to do and genuinely enjoy. \u00a0But I'll happily accept a bottle of wine as a token of appreciation. \u00a0Sometimes people are\u00a0really happy to get their stuff fixed. Look at the pile of swag that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"Booty!","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jimandnoreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/20130801-133502-768x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=12","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":4},"title":"Reviving a drowned laptop","date":"July 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My friend spilled a glass of water into her 13\" MacBook Pro.\u00a0 She had tried (unsuccessfully) to dry it out by sticking it in a bag of rice, followed up by a blast from a blow dryer.\u00a0 The laptop would not turn on at all.\u00a0 The battery was installed but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/jimandnoreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/macpro-logicboard-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":347,"url":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/?p=347","url_meta":{"origin":331,"position":5},"title":"Why Backups Matter (even when they don't matter)","date":"May 30, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Apple continues its multi-year assault on my beloved \"late 2011\" 17 inch MacBook Pro. First by shipping it with a famously defective logic board, which I learned to repair by periodically baking and now by stymying my efforts to to restore backups to it. When the 17-incher's hard disk started\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Apple"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimandnoreen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}