What Is a Rework Station?
A rework station is a device that can perform soldering and desoldering in a single unit and can also replicate soldering operations that have been conducted previously.
The rework station is a box-equipped device with nozzles for soldering and desoldering. It can supply hot air through nitrogen gas as well as heat from electricity.
Reproducibility is crucial in rework stations, and specific points on the board’s surface can be temperature-measured to ensure reproducible process conditions.
Uses of Rework Stations
Rework stations are available in multi-station versions capable of performing not only soldering but also desoldering and SMD rework.
Applications include R&D, process development, prototyping, and production environments.
They enable highly reproducible soldering in applications ranging from small and medium PCBs to large BGAs.
Principles of Rework Stations
Some rework stations have reduced power consumption, as low as 140 W, resulting in stress-free component removal on multilayer boards and shorter operation times.
The new nozzles can also be used for extremely small land diameters, narrow spaces, and flat terminals, as encountered in miniaturized cellular phone substrates.
Nitrogen gas flows evenly between the nozzle assembly and the tip, enveloping the entire tip. This prevents oxidation of the tip and solder, enhancing the preheating effect.
This oxidation prevention and preheating effect can also improve soldering defects such as bridging, icicles, and soldering failure due to insufficient heat capacity.
Precise removal of residual solder in an inert atmosphere is possible, facilitating the removal of molten solder from the board in a single step with a powerful vacuum without disturbing the pad or solder resist.
After the residual solder is removed, the BGA and CSP can be reused by restoring the solder ball arrays with BGA or CSP components to the required specifications, saving time and money.