[TenTec] Dragonball CPU for Ten-Tec Orion

[John Henry]

eBay Dragon balls, all I can say is buyer beware.
If you plan on buying any dragonballs on eBay to keep your
Orion running down the road, you had better buy 20 of them.
Almost all of the spare dragonballs on the market now have
oxidation on the BGAs. This means that they won't flow well and
have all of the balls, even by the best CM houses in the country.
You can have them reballed, but, that only works so well as well.
At TT we bought nearly 200 of them, the last that were from the
floor sweepings, rejects from the factories, etc.
Had them all reballed, and had a yield less than 20% that worked.
And, guess what, almost all from eBay turned out to be worse.
Then, once you do get a good dragonball, and you have a really good house
remove them, well, just pray that the pads don't lift up from the CPU board.
THEN, pray a second time that ALL of the newly reballed balls flow and
connect.
9 times out of 10, it won't work the first time, then, when you pull
that dragon ball off that can't be reused now, well, if a pad or two aren't
removed, then pray the 2nd reflow of another reballed dragon ball works.
Guys/Gals, to be blunt, these parts are over 15 years old now, and
unless they were kept in a clean room, they will be oxidized to some
extent. Some of the balls may be ok, but most likely, there will be a few
that aren't, and those will not make contact when reflowed.
If you want to buy them, go ahead, but I consider it a huge waste of money.
You wouldn't believe how many sources we tried, how many eBayers, how
many final stocking houses, etc. And out of maybe 500 purchased, there
were only 100 that left the doors fully tested. The rest ended up in the
scrap bin because there were some that simply would not run even in
a jig, and some that needed reballed, and some where the reballing process
killed the chip, etc. etc.

jmho, just my two cents, for whatever it is worth.

73, KI4JPL
John Henry