Just a quick post to document that I have ordered an IR8500 BGA Rework station. I have always wanted to learn how to use one of these machines and now I have a bigger work area I finally have room for one. Reviews seem good for this particular one, I was considering lashing out and getting a hot air based one but upon thinking about it I ended up going for an IR station instead. I don't really want this sort of work to be the main part of what I do so I think spending more might be a bit of a waste
Machine seems fairly capable considering the reviews. It should have enough power on the bottom pre-heater to be able to do Xbox 360s, OG Xbox and PS3s. Obviously, this will come in handy in respect to doing repairs, but there are also a number of mods that can be done that need one of these.
For example, you have the obvious one which is the PS3 'Frankenstein' mod that allows you to replace a 90nm RSX with a 40nm. But you also have some other ones like the OG Xbox CPU upgrade and Xbox 360 'zero fuse'.
From what I can tell there seems to be quite a learning curve required to replacing these large BGA packages. But I always look forward to learning new skills and I am now eagerly awaiting the arrival of my machine.
