Overclocking an Iron.....

[RoadWarrior]

Well...

I got a $2 domestic iron from Value Village the other day, and having spent an hour figuring out how to take it apart, I discovered I didn't need to.

The victim in question is a typical Proctor-Silex 1000W domestic iron. Why didn't you get a 1400W heat monster? You might ask. Well the answer is, because although a slightly higher terminal temperature is desireable, the useage I have in mind demands that it heat up quite slowly. I was in fact searching for a rather older type of possibly only around 600-800W, but having been looking for nearly a month my patience ran out, and I bit the bullet and picked up the cheapest/lowest wattage one on the shelf, which happened to be this one.

Q: So, you're "overclocking" it ????

Yep :D Domestic irons top out at slightly above 200C on the linen setting, or as far as the knob will turn. I want to get to around 220-230C....

Q: How????

All one needs to do is pop the control knob off, then inside the shaft is an adjustment screw that biases the spring on the thermostat contacts. If one undoes the screw (anticlockwise) one opens the gap, requiring the bimetallic leaf to move further (i.e. get hotter) berfore it cuts out the heating element. At the maximum adjustment you will feel a decrease in tension because the leaf you are biasing is no longer pushing against the screw, although there will be some resistance still because of the spring on the shaft of the screw. You will feel this best when the knob is turned to the max position to set it.

Q: Why????

Because it was there. :D No seriously.. The soldering temperature for BGA components is around 220C... Stay tuned for more on that. Note, this will require more than just planting a tweaked iron on the part and cranking the dial, so don't go adjusting your Mother's iron so she burns her tablecloths then head straight to the modding bench... To come sometime soon when I've got this all figured out, Iron Overclocking part deux: Iron-on BGA RAM...

Possible future mods to this Iron: A heatsink! :D Yep, remember I don't want it to get too hot too fast.

s'all for now,

Road Warrior

[GunnerMan]

Thats cool a few questions I need to ask because of my n00bieness.... What is BGA and why do you need an linnen iron to solder it cant you get a soldering iron? Also why dont you want it to heat up to fast?

[RoadWarrior]

Ah, BGA stands for Ball Grid Array, it's how a lot of RAM, GPUs and Chipsets are packaged these days, look close, see any pins? Nope? That's because all the connections are made under the chip. The package comes with a load of little solder balls on the bottom and in order to solder it, the whole package (usually along with the board too) is heated up. To allow this to happen without burning things a special low temperature solder is used. Conventional solders need between about 375C and 450C to melt, conventional soldering irons heat up to above those figures.

Now, if you're going to heat up the whole caboodle, you need to bring the temperature up slowly, ever seen a glass shatter when hot water is put into it, because the inside tries to expand faster than the outside? That's the kind of problem one has with heating BGA packages. Heat them up too quickly so that the temperature gradient across the package is too steep and they split. So one must sneak up on them gradually :D

Anyhoo, this is just a little side project of mine to attempt to figure out ways to attempt repair or modification of BGA based components using commonly available items. It's made out to be rocket science. Well AMD T-bird multipliers were thought of that way, until someone came along with a pencil... ditto the Palomino, until we figured the pits could be filled with whiteout or nail polish...

Road Warrior

[donny_paycheck]

The soldering temperature for BGA components is around 220C... Stay tuned for more on that.
You're a brave one.

[JigPu]

Very brave indeed. But I wish you the best of luck (...and possibly a way of getting these evil 3.3ns Infineon chips off my 9500 that don't OC ;))

JigPu

[RoadWarrior]

Well getting them off is the easy part, just use a mini blowtorch and flip with a screwdriver :D If you don't intend to re-use the chips that is. The tough bit is cleaning up and getting new chips on. It will be a while before my technique advances that far. At the moment I'm mostly interested in repairing faulty connections from flexed boards, and roughly removed heatsinks on chips that are already in place.

[GunnerMan]

Ahh thanks for the info. i recently ripped off my North and Sougt Bridge Chipsets with a screew driver to get a peeck of what was inside and it ha d abunch of smll pins. I am guessing thats BGA and BTW good luck!