On Tuesday, September 24, 2019 at 2:57:04 PM UTC-4, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

** The modules are a mass of SMD - so essentially non repairable by audio techs with regular bench equipment only.

.... Phil

I can promise you that if you saw several of these a month, you would have by now acquired both the equipment (cheap enough) and the skill to do this in your sleep.

Although SMD requires a learning curve, it is not difficult if the tech has decent hands and magnification.


It only took me abut 15 minutes to learn on 1206 & 0805 components, over 22 years ago. It wasn't long before I was working with 0402 and the occasional 0201 sizes which required a stereo microscope, due to my life long vision problems.



I don't know about those modules, but for about $ 500 or less you can
get set up for SMD repair. I bought the Stereo microscope for $ 200,
and a cheep hot air and soldering iron setup for about $ 70. This is a
hobby, I would spend about 3 to 4 hundred for a good hot air station if
repairing them all the time. Then a few more dollars for fine solder
and tweezers.

And FLUX! Flux is a magic elixer when it comes to SMD work.


I watched youtube and practiced on some old computer boards. I was 65
at the time. There may be some components that have multi leads under
the device that may require lots of practice.

Many modern SMD ics use a heat sink belly pan even if the IC has conventional leads. These must be heated by air to release the bottom pan. I've even seen 8 pin buck ICs that look totally conventional, but have a belly pan.

Before removing, check the datasheet to see if it has one. If it doesn't have a belly pan, blob both sides of the IC and lift off with tweezers.

One trick I taught my students was to take a Dremel and *carefully* mill down the top of the defective IC until the die of the IC was exposed. In this way, the IC would heat much more quickly from the top and release in far less time in order to reduce collateral damage to the PC or surrounding devices.