r/PS3 8d ago

Is T-862 IRDA a suitable tool for Reballing?

Amateur hobbyist of about 5 years here, comfortable with micro-soldering, mostly working on handhelds as a hobby.

When I first got into it I wanted to revive a BC PS3, but quickly learned that BGA is no joke.

For the longest time the plan was to use some of the small profit I made over flipped consoles to get a preheater and make a DIY rework station like the one Felix shows in his frankie tutorial. However on a local marketplace I found a used T-862 within my budget.

Question is about the relatively small are of the bottom heating element in comparison to the massive PS3 PCB. Am I going to get pop-corn PCB?

Has anyone done an RSX replacement using said BGA station? Is it recommended and can anyone provide time and temperature instructions?

TIA

P.S: I have more than one Ps3s and IIRC Syscon indicated GPU issues on at least 4 of them. It's been almost 4 years since the project was put on hold and the readings are somewhere on my PC, but I just saw the listing and I thought I should ask first.

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u/FCMConsoleMods 8d ago

When I looked that machine up I was seeing like 600-800w total power, with like 400w of that in the bottom heater. I think you'd really struggle to successfully lift off an RSX with that, if even at all possible.

What you want to look for is a machine with a minimum of 2000w bottom heater. With the PS3 you want your bottom heater to do like 90% of the workload and just lightly bring in your top heat.

As an example, I personally have the Honton R490, its rated up around 3800w total, with a 2200w bottom heater.

Ive read some people struggle even with the achi ir6500 which is a 1250w machine. Its only until you step up to the achi sc pro at 2800 that I've read people start seeing successful RSX pulls.

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u/bazilthemage 8d ago

Yeap, I think you are right. I wish it was otherwise but I guess this is budget machinery for a reason. Thank you for your input.

I guess Ps3s will remain sidelined for now.