[MM]

I still have my old HP LasterJet P2015d, but it has the dreaded
formatter board problem, as do thousands of these printers. This is
when after a year or two the printer LEDs start-up sequence is wrong
and the printer stops working.

Many printers never work again, but mine does work for a few minutes.
If I switch it off and wait 30 minutes, then it usually works again -
for another few minutes. Basically, a PITA.

The internet is groaning with posts about baking the formatter baord
at 400 deg F for around 8 minutes ("recipe" varies...) Many people do
report that this fixes the problem. Sometimes it appears to be a
permanent fix. In other cases the fix lasts for a few months.

The baking at 400 deg is designed to re-flow the bad solder ball
joints, which apparently were bad because the production facility in
China had not got up to speed with handling lead-free solder when this
printer was introduced. (It happens with other HP laser printers as
well, however.)

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

MM

PS: I bought another printer (not HP!) for everyday use, so the P2015d
is just sitting in the spare room, unused. When it's working, it works
perfectly. I even thought of removing the formatter board, flexing it
a bit (~very~ slightly!), then replacing it. But of course, that could
exacerbate the problem. New formatter boards are like gold dust and
cost anything up to a hundred quid, so that's out of the question.
Plus there is a huge rip-off market out there with people offering
replacment boards that they have simply baked themselves.

[GB]

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Wouldn't this have hundreds/thousands of joints, including really tiny
surface-mounted components? If so, I expect "a professional electronics
engineer" would bung it in the oven at 400 degrees.

[Dave[_60_]]

MM was thinking very hard :
I still have my old HP LasterJet P2015d, but it has the dreaded
formatter board problem, as do thousands of these printers. This is
when after a year or two the printer LEDs start-up sequence is wrong
and the printer stops working.

Many printers never work again, but mine does work for a few minutes.
If I switch it off and wait 30 minutes, then it usually works again -
for another few minutes. Basically, a PITA.

The internet is groaning with posts about baking the formatter baord
at 400 deg F for around 8 minutes ("recipe" varies...) Many people do
report that this fixes the problem. Sometimes it appears to be a
permanent fix. In other cases the fix lasts for a few months.

The baking at 400 deg is designed to re-flow the bad solder ball
joints, which apparently were bad because the production facility in
China had not got up to speed with handling lead-free solder when this
printer was introduced. (It happens with other HP laser printers as
well, however.)

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

MM

PS: I bought another printer (not HP!) for everyday use, so the P2015d
is just sitting in the spare room, unused. When it's working, it works
perfectly. I even thought of removing the formatter board, flexing it
a bit (~very~ slightly!), then replacing it. But of course, that could
exacerbate the problem. New formatter boards are like gold dust and
cost anything up to a hundred quid, so that's out of the question.
Plus there is a huge rip-off market out there with people offering
replacment boards that they have simply baked themselves.

There's hundreds of videos on YouTube about reflowing/reballing of GPUs
- ok, not a printer formatter board but they'll show you the 'proper'
equipment and techniques. This is one of the better quality video's and
actually shows the reballing of a (can't remember if it's a PS3 or an
Xbox360) GPU, the fault being, IIRC, the Red Ring of Death. It's about
15 minutes long but interesting to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:45:02 +0100, Dave wrote:

MM was thinking very hard :
I still have my old HP LasterJet P2015d, but it has the dreaded
formatter board problem, as do thousands of these printers. This is
when after a year or two the printer LEDs start-up sequence is wrong
and the printer stops working.

Many printers never work again, but mine does work for a few minutes.
If I switch it off and wait 30 minutes, then it usually works again -
for another few minutes. Basically, a PITA.

The internet is groaning with posts about baking the formatter baord
at 400 deg F for around 8 minutes ("recipe" varies...) Many people do
report that this fixes the problem. Sometimes it appears to be a
permanent fix. In other cases the fix lasts for a few months.

The baking at 400 deg is designed to re-flow the bad solder ball
joints, which apparently were bad because the production facility in
China had not got up to speed with handling lead-free solder when this
printer was introduced. (It happens with other HP laser printers as
well, however.)

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

MM

PS: I bought another printer (not HP!) for everyday use, so the P2015d
is just sitting in the spare room, unused. When it's working, it works
perfectly. I even thought of removing the formatter board, flexing it
a bit (~very~ slightly!), then replacing it. But of course, that could
exacerbate the problem. New formatter boards are like gold dust and
cost anything up to a hundred quid, so that's out of the question.
Plus there is a huge rip-off market out there with people offering
replacment boards that they have simply baked themselves.

There's hundreds of videos on YouTube about reflowing/reballing of GPUs
- ok, not a printer formatter board but they'll show you the 'proper'
equipment and techniques. This is one of the better quality video's and
actually shows the reballing of a (can't remember if it's a PS3 or an
Xbox360) GPU, the fault being, IIRC, the Red Ring of Death. It's about
15 minutes long but interesting to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

Can you explain what "reballing" actually means? In one of the YouTube
videos I watched the blurb said you could see the balls if you looked
closely. What are these balls?

In the meantime I've been to the HP web site parts section and it
appears that the formatter board is available. Price: around £94
depending on exact model. I paid £84 two years ago for a brand-new
Canon laser printer, and that included a free two-year on-site
warranty.

It really ****es me off that a 95% "good" printer will end up being
thrown into landfill because a cost-effective repair is not available.
(I don't consider baking to be a repair, but a bodge.)

MM

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Dave
escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

*impressed*

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

[Andy Burns[_7_]]

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

MM

[Andy Burns[_7_]]

MM wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:

all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should.

That was my point, how much do you think someone would charge for that
repair v.s. buying one on ebay?

[dennis@home]

"MM" wrote in message
...

8

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

You mean a vapour phase soldering machine?
A bit expensive for DIY.


Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Not even that long.

if its an oldish printer used infrequently you may pay for a new one on
power and toner savings.

[dennis@home]

"MM" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

[John Rumm]

On 10/07/2012 18:04, MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:45:02 +0100, Dave wrote:

MM was thinking very hard :
I still have my old HP LasterJet P2015d, but it has the dreaded
formatter board problem, as do thousands of these printers. This is
when after a year or two the printer LEDs start-up sequence is wrong
and the printer stops working.

Many printers never work again, but mine does work for a few minutes.
If I switch it off and wait 30 minutes, then it usually works again -
for another few minutes. Basically, a PITA.

The internet is groaning with posts about baking the formatter baord
at 400 deg F for around 8 minutes ("recipe" varies...) Many people do
report that this fixes the problem. Sometimes it appears to be a
permanent fix. In other cases the fix lasts for a few months.

The baking at 400 deg is designed to re-flow the bad solder ball
joints, which apparently were bad because the production facility in
China had not got up to speed with handling lead-free solder when this
printer was introduced. (It happens with other HP laser printers as
well, however.)

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

MM

PS: I bought another printer (not HP!) for everyday use, so the P2015d
is just sitting in the spare room, unused. When it's working, it works
perfectly. I even thought of removing the formatter board, flexing it
a bit (~very~ slightly!), then replacing it. But of course, that could
exacerbate the problem. New formatter boards are like gold dust and
cost anything up to a hundred quid, so that's out of the question.
Plus there is a huge rip-off market out there with people offering
replacment boards that they have simply baked themselves.

There's hundreds of videos on YouTube about reflowing/reballing of GPUs
- ok, not a printer formatter board but they'll show you the 'proper'
equipment and techniques. This is one of the better quality video's and
actually shows the reballing of a (can't remember if it's a PS3 or an
Xbox360) GPU, the fault being, IIRC, the Red Ring of Death. It's about
15 minutes long but interesting to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

Can you explain what "reballing" actually means? In one of the YouTube
videos I watched the blurb said you could see the balls if you looked
closely. What are these balls?

The short answer is the balls are made from solder...

Intro and link to video he

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?...air#Re-balling

A "Ball Grid Array" is a type of package for a chip that does not have
leads or pins. Instead it has in effect just a flat surface with lots of
solder pads or "lands" on it in much the same way as a PCB does.

You basically flux up the chip, place a tiny solder ball on every pad,
and then heat it to flow them onto the pads. You can then repeat this
process to reflow the balled chip onto a circuit board.

In the meantime I've been to the HP web site parts section and it
appears that the formatter board is available. Price: around £94
depending on exact model. I paid £84 two years ago for a brand-new
Canon laser printer, and that included a free two-year on-site
warranty.

It really ****es me off that a 95% "good" printer will end up being
thrown into landfill because a cost-effective repair is not available.
(I don't consider baking to be a repair, but a bodge.)

Well to be fair is not far off a "proper" solution. To reball a chip
"properly" you would use an IR lamp to heat the chip in question, and
have a preheat to bring the whole board up to 100 degrees C or so to
reduce thermal shock.

A bit of heat shielding, and a a decent temperature probe can make the
whole process a bit more precise.

(I have reflowed a BGA GPU in a laptop using a few layers of tin foil as
a heat shield, and a hot air paint stripper in the past)

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:01:26 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Well to be fair is not far off a "proper" solution. To reball a chip
"properly" you would use an IR lamp to heat the chip in question, and
have a preheat to bring the whole board up to 100 degrees C or so to
reduce thermal shock.

Now that does sound a little bit more of a professional approach to
me. NB: Not all people who've tried the baking method were successful.
Whereas in one YouTube video the bloke said, don't move the board
after the 8 minutes, but switch the oven off and open the door to
allow it to cool down first, otherwise components on the PCB might
become dislodged (liquid solder!), a different video showed the board
being removed (i.e. moved) immediately after the baking, which sound
an utterly stupid move to me.

Can you explain a bit more about that IR lamp, what it looks like, how
to apply it, what it costs? Thanks!

MM

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:01:26 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Well to be fair is not far off a "proper" solution. To reball a chip
"properly" you would use an IR lamp to heat the chip in question, and
have a preheat to bring the whole board up to 100 degrees C or so to
reduce thermal shock.

Now that does sound a little bit more of a professional approach to
me. NB: Not all people who've tried the baking method were successful.
Whereas in one YouTube video the bloke said, don't move the board
after the 8 minutes, but switch the oven off and open the door to
allow it to cool down first, otherwise components on the PCB might
become dislodged (liquid solder!), a different video showed the board
being removed (i.e. moved) immediately after the baking, which sound
an utterly stupid move to me.

Can you explain a bit more about that IR lamp, what it looks like, how
to apply it, what it costs? Thanks!

MM

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:25:28 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays. It should be made illegal. My late mum's mangle was a cast
iron jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it. My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993. Today,
quality is abysmal. Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is
only four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers. HP
should have their arses sued off in a mass class action or something.
It's not like just one or two of these printers have been affected,
but thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. In one case alone, a
company reported having a 100 of the things.

MM

[MM]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:21:48 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
.. .

8

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

You mean a vapour phase soldering machine?
A bit expensive for DIY.


Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Not even that long.

if its an oldish printer used infrequently you may pay for a new one on
power and toner savings.

No, the printer was barely four years old when the problem first
arose. And it had not even got half-way through its only *second*
toner cartridge. 1½ cartridges and the printer's f***ed due to a
design/manufacturing fault!! That's really ****ty service in my view.
I hope HP go bust.

MM

[charles]

In article ,
MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:21:48 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
.. .

8

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

You mean a vapour phase soldering machine?
A bit expensive for DIY.


Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Not even that long.

if its an oldish printer used infrequently you may pay for a new one on
power and toner savings.

No, the printer was barely four years old when the problem first
arose. And it had not even got half-way through its only *second*
toner cartridge. 1½ cartridges and the printer's f***ed due to a
design/manufacturing fault!! That's really ****ty service in my view.
I hope HP go bust.

don't blame HP. Blame the EU for banning leaded solder. The replacement
gives unreliable joints which is why there are exemptions for equipment
used for "medical or military purposes".

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

[MM]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:07:23 +0100, charles
wrote:

In article ,
MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:21:48 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
.. .

8

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

You mean a vapour phase soldering machine?
A bit expensive for DIY.


Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Not even that long.

if its an oldish printer used infrequently you may pay for a new one on
power and toner savings.

No, the printer was barely four years old when the problem first
arose. And it had not even got half-way through its only *second*
toner cartridge. 1½ cartridges and the printer's f***ed due to a
design/manufacturing fault!! That's really ****ty service in my view.
I hope HP go bust.

don't blame HP. Blame the EU for banning leaded solder. The replacement
gives unreliable joints which is why there are exemptions for equipment
used for "medical or military purposes".

No, I blame the manufacturer for not doing enough work to ensure that
the production quality control was up to snuff, which it plainly was
not.

MM

[Martin Brown]

On 11/07/2012 08:53, MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:25:28 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays. It should be made illegal. My late mum's mangle was a cast

That is what you get in a consumer society. Same logic results in dirt
cheap or free mobile phones with complex monthly contracts and cheap
inkjet printers with inks that cost more per gramme than pure heroin.

iron jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it. My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993. Today,
quality is abysmal. Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is
only four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers. HP
should have their arses sued off in a mass class action or something.
It's not like just one or two of these printers have been affected,
but thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. In one case alone, a
company reported having a 100 of the things.

There was a time when HP stood for very high quality test equipment,
computers and peripherals but those days are long gone now. The good
bits were spun off as Agilent. Vote with your feet. I have.
(I still have a working LJ III - or at least our Village Hall does)

BTW sticking the thing in the oven for just long enough to remelt the
solder and crossing your fingers is probably your best bet. It might not
work if the problem is down to some mismatch of the solders or flux
originally - lead free and leaded solders used together don't cooperate.

Samsung and Dell do some reasonable robust but ugly laser printers.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Rod Speed]

"MM" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:25:28 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays.

Pigs arse it is. It isnt even possible.

It should be made illegal. My late mum's mangle was a cast iron
jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it. My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993.
Today, quality is abysmal.

Its just as good with plenty of stuff.

Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is only
four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers.

No need.

HP should have their arses sued off in a mass class action or
something. It's not like just one or two of these printers have
been affected, but thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. In one
case alone, a company reported having a 100 of the things.

[Paul D Smith]

"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!


If you've repaired it, you have a reasonable chance it will keep working.
If you buy if off eBay either it may be about to fail shortly, or may have
been badly repaired and will fail shortly, or it might work. So how may
eBay Xboxes are you willing to buy before you find a good one - or you can
have some fun.

I'm off to watch the video because my PS3 repair didn't work very well so
I'm interested to know what they did better than me!

Paul DS

[GB]

don't blame HP. Blame the EU for banning leaded solder. The replacement
gives unreliable joints which is why there are exemptions for equipment
used for "medical or military purposes".

No, I blame the manufacturer for not doing enough work to ensure that
the production quality control was up to snuff, which it plainly was
not.

That is unfair. A new manufacturing technique was forced on HP by the EU
within a short time. Any testing they could do was for a shorter period
than these boards actually took to fail. In your case, the board failed
after 4 years, which was a much longer time than manufacturers had to
implement new manufacturing techniques and test them.

The usual way that manufacturers deal with that problem is to test
products in hot conditions. That normally accelerates the failure rate.
However, with dodgy solder joints, I don't think it will work that way.

Perhaps you should explain what HP should have done? By the way, you
probably had a reasonable case against the merchant who sold you the
printer under SOGA.

[The Other Mike[_3_]]

On Wed, 11 Jul 2012 08:53:39 +0100, MM wrote:


It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays. It should be made illegal. My late mum's mangle was a cast
iron jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it. My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993. Today,
quality is abysmal. Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is
only four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers.

The conservation movement, aka environmentalists, brought this crap on
us in the first place by conning governments into restricting the use
of certain elements. No one goes out to design unreliable
electronics, but its going to be more common than it ought to be
because of them.

But on the bright side, your electricity supply will be so unreliable
in the years to come due to greenpeace and friends of the earth wind
turbine huggers that electronic equipment will be come irrelevant.

Welcome to the new stone age, brought to you by Greenpeace and Friends
of the Earth.

Me, I'd burn the lot of them at the stake.


--

[John Rumm]

On 11/07/2012 08:15, MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:01:26 +0100, John Rumm
wrote:

Well to be fair is not far off a "proper" solution. To reball a chip
"properly" you would use an IR lamp to heat the chip in question, and
have a preheat to bring the whole board up to 100 degrees C or so to
reduce thermal shock.

Now that does sound a little bit more of a professional approach to
me. NB: Not all people who've tried the baking method were successful.

"Baking" as such is not always going to fix the problem - all its doing
is re-flowing the existing solder joints, and not re making them with
new solder. If the original problem arose due to poor thermal design and
inappropriate solder in the first place, then it may well just reoccur
later. You can achieve the same result with a hot air rework station as
well.

(not to say such repairs are worthless - you may well get years more
service out of them after!)

Whereas in one YouTube video the bloke said, don't move the board
after the 8 minutes, but switch the oven off and open the door to
allow it to cool down first, otherwise components on the PCB might
become dislodged (liquid solder!), a different video showed the board
being removed (i.e. moved) immediately after the baking, which sound
an utterly stupid move to me.

Indeed. Its also worth noting that many surface mount components have a
heat up and cool down *rate* specification. So there will be a maximum
temperature slew that you should expose them to. 4 deg/sec for example.

Having said that, the toaster oven approaches can be quite successful
for new build surface mount work (i.e. solder paste applied with a
stencil over the whole board, components manually placed, and then taken
through a reflow cycle to complete the soldering)

Can you explain a bit more about that IR lamp, what it looks like, how
to apply it, what it costs? Thanks!

Here is one example:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/T862-REWOR...item20bbdb8b06

Example of some one just reflowing rather than reballing using something
similar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUqKv...eature=related

The other reballing link I gave in a previous post shows a similar
station in use.


--
Cheers,

John.

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[John Rumm]

On 11/07/2012 08:53, MM wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:25:28 +0100, "dennis@home"
wrote:



"MM" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:22:54 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Mike Tomlinson wrote:

Dave escribió:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYLLoYnHK8s

They made a beautiful job of cleaning up the chip and reinstating the
solder balls prior to reflowing.

Agreed, but all that to fix an XBOX? Buy a replacement on fleabay!

No, if it can be repaired cost effectively, then it should. I loathe
the throwaway society.

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays. It should be made illegal. My late mum's mangle was a cast

There is a subtle difference between designed to fail, and not designed
to last.

If I build a PVR and specify PSU capacitors with a 2000 hour life, which
is that? If I spec 15K hour caps, and as a result everyone buys the
cheaper unit from a competitor that uses the cheaper components, is that
better?

iron jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it. My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993. Today,
quality is abysmal. Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is
only four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers. HP

The irony is that its the green movement that have caused many of these
problems. I would guess that more kit gets trashed as a result of the
use of lead free solder than any other single reason!

should have their arses sued off in a mass class action or something.
It's not like just one or two of these printers have been affected,
but thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. In one case alone, a
company reported having a 100 of the things.

Yup, when there is evidence that loads have failed, perhaps. Even then
tough it gets more complicated... The laserjets that lasted forever,
were premium quality bits of kit with prices to match. The modern ones
that only last a few years are in many cases less than a 20th of the
price in real terms. Its is perhaps unrealistic to expect the same
longevity.


--
Cheers,

John.

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| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[Peter Crosland]

On 10/07/2012 17:15, MM wrote:
I still have my old HP LasterJet P2015d, but it has the dreaded
formatter board problem, as do thousands of these printers. This is
when after a year or two the printer LEDs start-up sequence is wrong
and the printer stops working.

Many printers never work again, but mine does work for a few minutes.
If I switch it off and wait 30 minutes, then it usually works again -
for another few minutes. Basically, a PITA.

The internet is groaning with posts about baking the formatter baord
at 400 deg F for around 8 minutes ("recipe" varies...) Many people do
report that this fixes the problem. Sometimes it appears to be a
permanent fix. In other cases the fix lasts for a few months.

The baking at 400 deg is designed to re-flow the bad solder ball
joints, which apparently were bad because the production facility in
China had not got up to speed with handling lead-free solder when this
printer was introduced. (It happens with other HP laser printers as
well, however.)

But my question is, is there not a much more professional way of
re-flowing that solder? Baking seems a very Heath-Robinson approach to
me, even if it does work. Several people have said that the plastics
on the board start to take a hit after a few minutes. All sounds very
"iffy" to me.

Now what would a professional electronics engineer do? I'm not one,
but maybe if I knew what the right method of fixing was, I could
perhaps locate a suitable person and give him/her 20 quid. May only
take a few minutes.

Any comments?

Cheers!

MM

PS: I bought another printer (not HP!) for everyday use, so the P2015d
is just sitting in the spare room, unused. When it's working, it works
perfectly. I even thought of removing the formatter board, flexing it
a bit (~very~ slightly!), then replacing it. But of course, that could
exacerbate the problem. New formatter boards are like gold dust and
cost anything up to a hundred quid, so that's out of the question.
Plus there is a huge rip-off market out there with people offering
replacment boards that they have simply baked themselves.

Given that you can buy a decent mono laser printer for less than £50
that is a much more realistic solution given the age of the HP.


Peter Crosland

[dennis@home]

"MM" wrote in message
...

At minimum wage its cheaper to chuck it, do you expect skilled people to
work for nothing?

It's cheaper, sure, but not better. Equipment is *designed* to fail
nowadays. It should be made illegal.


It isn't designed to fail and it would be illegal.
people have been prosecuted for put timers into kit so that they failed out
of warranty.

My late mum's mangle was a cast
iron jobbie with massive wooden rollers. It was already old when mum
acquired it.

I have no doubt that you can buy a mangle that is just as good these days if
you want one.
It probably won't cost as much either.

My original LaserJet III lasted THIRTEEN years with only
a new toner cartridge every now and then. That was anno 1993. Today,
quality is abysmal.

Thirteen years is poor for such a machine. they were designed for lots of
pages.
If you buy a comparable printer now (about £3000+ in today's money) you will
get a machine just as capable.



Throw a perfectly good printer away (my P2015 is
only four years old) that has had VERY little wear (home use only)
simply because one or two solder balls have dry joints? This is so
utterly idiotic a policy, the conservation movement must really mount
some sort of a campaign to re-educated manufacturers and designers. HP
should have their arses sued off in a mass class action or something.
It's not like just one or two of these printers have been affected,
but thousands. Possibly tens of thousands. In one case alone, a
company reported having a 100 of the things.

You may well have a case against the retailer, you may even be able to get
10-15% back as most people would expect a 5 year life from a laser printer.
Go and ask. You can use the masses of faults as evidence to show the fault
was there at the time of purchase.

[dennis@home]

"The Other Mike" wrote in message
...

Welcome to the new stone age, brought to you by Greenpeace and Friends
of the Earth.

Me, I'd burn the lot of them at the stake.

Wouldn't it be greener to make fish food out of them and drop it in the
ocean?