Xbox 360 Reflow Tutorial

[crazy-modder]

I am making this tutorial because i have alot of people asking me about the correct temperatures for a successful reflow.  Follow this video and you will be able to fix your basic gpu and cpu errors (e74)

xbox 360 reflow tutorial
Xbox 360 Reflow Tutorial Part 2

[Phantom]

nice tutorial man, what would you pay for a reflow station like the one you have there?

[Monk3y]

Can you make a list of all the items you used to do this in your tutorial and estimate on prices for each item/total?

[crazy-modder]

The items i used are:

-Aoyue 968 rework station approx $180
-Nozzle #4141 approx $20
-Presto Griddle approx $20 from walmart
-Arctic silver thermal paste $5 ebay or $10 radioshack
-Kapton tape $5 ebay

[FOOKz™]

I love your setup with the clamps holding the heater. Good work.

[crazy-modder]

Thanks guys. O yeah i forgot to add the clamps on the list. I think i paid about $25 for a entire set of clamps from home depot.

[Rodent]

Sweet Video and you seem to be set up to do alot of different things. I havent been on acidmods very long so I am just learning and I dont like to step on toes or show off. But I bought an Xbox360 with the E74 code and only paid like 40 bucks for it. someone else tried to fix it and they failed. I spent about 2 hours watching some vids from You tube and Used MY $9.00 hair dryer for about 5 minutes on each side of the board to keep it from warping. worked great fixed the E74 code for about a day. come to find out the board was still overheating and kicked the code again. did the same procedure once again and added an external cooling fan for about $5.00 at game stop has a thermal sencor on it and when it starts to get warm It kicks on. had the 360 now for over a month and havent had any problems since. Thanks to the guys at acidmods I have learned alot  more.  Thanks to all of you!

[Dcofer]

I actually just ordered one of these reflow stations to work on s few boxes I have laying around as well as other projects.  I had a quick question though, since I didnt have the funds to order a heater as well and conveniently have the same griddle as you, did you put the board on anything or did you just set it directly on the griddle?  I want to double check before I accidentally fry any components.

Thanks

[Rodent]

I bought a griddle at walmart for $20 and what i used is a 10-32 x 1/2" long stainless steel flat head screw holds the board a half inch of the grilddle. worked great for me. used 4 and set them apart where i was heating the gpu and cpu so that the board wouldnt warp . I used a hair drier the first time around on my first xbox 360 and started fixing for a few friends.

[crazy-modder]

You can do what Rodent did. I just used 4 xlamps i had laying around. I set them on the griddle and set the motherboard on top of the xclamps. It works very well.

[Rodent]

Hey look at that someone agreed with me....lol wish my girlfriends would of....lol

[dwnhiler]

crazy modder do you think you could show us how you did the screws on the bottom of the MOBO and the griddle by picture of video please thanks a lot great tutorial 

[Dcofer]

sweet thanks, I will actually be doing this fix tonight, fingers crossed this damn kapton tape comes in today like it is supposed to >.> but who can trust ups =p  I should have 4 xclamps after I replace the ones on my box or I have ~6 .5" aluminum pcb risers so that should be good as well then.  I am hoping I have the success you had cuz this was a free box and it will make this $200 parts investment pay itself off quicker haha (even though I bought it for school work anyways =p).  This is the most in depth tutorial I personally have found so thank you for that =D

side note:  I am assuming that the clamps / stand-offs are placed strategically under the board to keep the unsupported areas minimal, but do I need to make sure to place it where there are no traces / components?  I figure this is the case but I'd rather be safe then sorry considering it doesn't require an in depth answer haha

EDIT: corrected kapton to the correct product instead of krylon ... which is paint >.>

[crazy-modder]

i just put the xclamps in a square formation. Make sure to take the plastic pieces off of the xclamps otherwise they melt...i learned that from experience. You can place the xclamps where ever you want as long as the mobo is not lopsided and wobbles back and forth.  Also make sure your nozzle from the reflow gun is close as possible to the gpu without touching it. Goodluck and post your results.

[Dcofer]

I just realized that whoever tried to fix this box before put pads on what I believe are the memory chips, now I figure I should remove those before heating the board but should I replace them after or would it be okay to leave them off?

[crazy-modder]

IMO those pads dont really do shiz for the ram. You would be better off getting small heatsinks from a local computer store.

[Dcofer]

for sure I had the same feeling,  maybe i will make that the next upgrade to this box when i hopefully add a fan, though I plan on still doing the xclamp and reflow tonight once ups drops off my tape. Thanks for the quick responses.

[crazy-modder]

The tape is an optional thing. I only use it because im over cautious.  Its only used to cover the surrounding resistors and or capacitors.  But its not needed.

[Rodent]

Its good to see that people admit to the mistakes they make. Its a learning experiance. my latest experiance is , I bought and xbox with rrod error, no problem I thought, got it home turned it on to check it and smelled something burning, opened it up full of bugs and looked like eggs or they shiz....and the board had, resistors missing under the gpu backside of board, blown capacitors etc, I replaced the capacitors and relized this after i flipped it over that other parts had been knocked off or melted off due to someone else tried to fix this problem.

[crazy-modder]

Dude i had that same thing happen to me about a month ago. I bought an xbox on fleabay for $10 that someone claimed had a 0102 secondary error.....I got it and turned it on and i smelled something burning and quickly turned it off. I opened it up and this thing was FULL of little roaches, beetles, ants and all sorts of crap. I was like omg wtf is this. So i cleaned it out and i didnt even check to see if there were missing parts. I wasted my time reflowing it because after i did a reflow it did the same thing. I checked the bottom of the board and tons of parts such as caps, res, transistors were missing. So i just tossed it. I recommend to everybody that buys a rrod xbox to check into it more.

[Dcofer]

damn that is crazy, luckily i got this box from my sisters coworker so it should be a good board. plus I overheated it the first time and it worked for the first turn on so that also makes me feel like i got a decent board.  I decided to do this one right though so i didnt mess things up overheating.  thats freaking crazy though that there were bugs and shiz inside the box, htf does that happen? did tey like find it in a dump and resell it? hehe.  It makes me sad though that there are people that sell stuff like this and dont mention it, our society is filled with asshats.

EDIT: as for the tape its soo cheap its worth the extra safety imho.

[Rodent]

It Is amazing how some people live, wont spend the money to take care of the home they charish and have to live in, but will spend the $200 to $300 dollors ,I gotta have it xbox 360 or what ever there game system is and, wont take the time to clean there house where there kids play or yet alone have 4 or 5  dogs and let there kids play in there shiz. I love pets and love kids and no kid should have to live in filth.

LMFAO =Fleabay...LMFAO

[Dcofer]

I totally agree with you Rodent, some people just dont have their priorities straight.  I personally could live like that, maybe some clothes and electronic components laying around but never filth.  My gramps is a psudo hoarder so ive been around places like that and have a hard time seeing how they can live like that.

so I just finished the reflow and xclamp mod and i must tip my hat to you so far it is working like it should be =D  I will need to keep testing it throughout Christmas break but i feel that this is gonna work solidly for as long as i have it.  Thanks for this amazingly helpful tutorial.  I will make sure to post after this box has some hours logged onto it so as to show that it was a successful fix.

Also on the Ayoue 968 it tells me to remove the red screw under it, I was curious if you knew what that was.  I am assuming its to hold a part down during shipping but I really have no idea.

[crazy-modder]

Yes you want to remove that screw. I am not exactly sure as to what it is but if it tells me to remove it then thats what ill do. I think it allows the system to breathe. I am glad to hear that your xbox is working like a champ and im glad i could help. Keep up the good work and you can probably even make some money by fixing other peoples xboxs.

[Rodent]

I was going to buy a reflow machine like that but i wanted to see how things would go first and see if i could make money at fixing xbox 360s and ps3s . so just bought a griddle and heat gun for now and few other things needed

[Dcofer]

Yeah I forgot about it til after doing this fix but I removed it now so it should be good for whatever it does haha. I might have a steady customer base since my roommate works electronics at target and he says people come in seeing if they buy back RROD boxes so i told him to start getting info and maybe get some boxes on the cheap or get some customers =p

Yeah I feel you there Rodent, it took me a while to decide to get one and I justified it as I wanted a better soldering iron for school and this was only $50 then the one I was gonna buy.  Its a little lower end but much better then I already have.  I feel that if you are actually gonna get some solid work out of the system you might be good with your method.  the total cost for the Ayoue 968 and the nozzle came out to $205 which comes out to ~10 boxes reflowed w/ xclamp fix while charging $25.  It also comes down to how much money you have to spare, this was my Christmas present to myself hehe

[Rodent]

Heres the thing around my town, say with in a 20 mile radius these guys say they can do it for 20 bucks and takes them 3 hours to do one RROD fix. So in all truely thats like 6 bucks an hour. and i see other guys charge 30 to 50 bucks to do RROD and some do 12 volt fan mod.

I timed myself on the few that i did, took me at the best 1 hour 45 minutes to from pulling the case apart cleaning the mother board and heating it with the griddle and heat gun and new artic silver thermal paste and drilling the case and assembled all back together case in tack . I also tested before assembley of case and after . also bought a gun to check tempture was like 30 dollars to see how hot they get when fans are running , around 110 degrees normal fan speed

So even at 1 hour 45 minutes thats letting the motherboard come back to room tempture whats a good price to charge where you can make money?

Also whats a case mod worth or just cutting a the case with no leds. 
I guess my point is you spent over $200 how many RRODS or E-74 errors etc. would you have to do to make a good profit
I am beginner in doing mods and been a machinist for 25 yrs. The stuff that crazy modder and modded matt and hyper amd hazer spurg do and many others , makes this stuff look so awsome. yet would take years of schooling for me to catch up. Thanks to all these guys and others, I am catching on pretty fast for a couple of months on AMs and thanks to ACIDMODS its self for having this site.

[Dcofer]

well most electronic components (leds, wire, fans) are pretty cheap though installing them can take some time at first when your tryin to figure out how to run them, and this forum can help with that big time and sounds liek you could do case mods easily.  For me this is kind of a side thing right now until I'm sure I am doing it right so they don't come back.  Considering you can only charge so much it could take a while to turn a decent profit, I'm not expecting to turn a profit right away, I technically got a free xbox out of it that I'm going to use as a practice box.  I personally make sure I do the fix as professional as possible, and charge $25-$30, this first correct reflow that I did took me ~1.5 hours so thats liek a normal salary.  Other mods you can bump up the cost cuz there are very few people that can do them and they do take some time.

[crazy-modder]

Ok, i charge $40 no matter how long it takes me. The customer does not need to know how long it takes you to fix something. Think of it as a flat rate charge. Lets say a automotive technician changes an alternator on a car and the book says it will take him 3 hours to do it. He is able to do it in 20 minutes, the shop still charges the customer for a 3 hour job even though it took him 20 minutes to do it.  I base my repairs off flat rate, i charge $40 for a reflow and thats with the xclamp mod. It only takes me about 45 minutes to do an entire reflow. I charge $80 for a reball and that can take much longer than a reflow.  I suggest you guys sit down and write down what kinds of things you can add into your repair such as 12v fan mod, xclamp, leds etc.  Those extra ideas that you add into your reflow charge, tell the customer its $40 for a reflow with "free 12v fan mod".  People love the word free. It may only take you like 5 minutes to do a 12v fan mod since you already have it opened so why not just do it and say free, same goes for leds on the RF board. People will keep coming back to you and recommend you to all their friends. I reflow about 10 xboxs a week and flash about 15-25 a week. Word will travel very fast if you know how to treat people right and make them feel like they got a really good deal on something.

[Rodent]

decofer. you said thats like an normal salary. Thats probably some where in the ball park about what i was making as a machinist working for someone else that is. Doing it for myself depending on what had to be done is more like a $100 to $150 an hour due to it only may take 20 minutes to cut or machine what you have to but cost of tools isnt cheap. Endmills which is like a router bit  and drill bits and other tools. The set up time though can take hours to set it up just to cut it so you kind of have to make your money some where.

Crazy modder , I see your point and that is so very true . People Love that word FREE . that is the deal breaker  saying that you will through that in free. I really love doing this, I tried wrenching on cars for side work , rebuiding carburators, fabricating work. all though i can make it look easy and get it done in a fair amount of time. still people want a deal .
So I guess your right charge a flat rate and stick to it. They will pay if they want it done bad enough