SMT rework shops near Sacramento or Bay Area?

[Joerg]

I hope you are all kept safe during the bad wheather.

We (dk-europe) have had some real strange wheather behaviour in 2007 -
lets see how 2008 behaves.....

We had lots of stuff flying around. Trees, power poles, pieces of roof.
Luckily our house has a metal roof and we had everything tied down
before the storm rolled in.

Somehow winters become colder, longer and more wild every year around
here. The wood stove is cranking full bore for days in a row and my wife
thinks the ice age is coming back.

 

[John Larkin]

Similar here. The force was quite amazing. We have a fairly heavy wooden
bench near the pool. Tied everything down except for that one because it
would never move. Wrong! It lifted off almost vertically and then
crashed into a flower bed.

Haven't seen any major damage around our house but couldn't check the
roof, too windy. Luckily we had replaced it with steel, else we wouldn't
have a roof now. Oh well, since the insurance has a $5k deductible we'll
have to fix whatever broke by ourselves. That bench might mutate into
firewood soon.



Don't do that, I know a guy who did slide off a roof and (by a miracle)
lived to tell about it. This neighbor with the uprooted tree also had
the whole east side fence blown over. A few years ago it was restored
but they "re-used" the old posts. That's what broke it.



And some more trees to come down because now their roots are located in
mushy soil that doesn't hold anything.



That looks like a picture-perfect paradise compared to here ;-)


Yes, please do, I'd appreciate that (others probably, too).

These guys do good assembly, despite the ghastly web site,

http://www.mentzerelectronics.com/index.htm

but I don't think they do rework.

John

 

[Joerg]

These guys do good assembly, despite the ghastly web site,

http://www.mentzerelectronics.com/index.htm

Thanks, John. Always good to know, especially if someone has used them.
I'll keep that on file. The web site is ok, they simply list what they
can do. Wish there was a regular email contact other than webmaster on
there.

I have used these folks in the past and was very pleased:

http://wdburch.com/

but I don't think they do rework.

Support during the prototype phase is a real problem these days. Burch
did it for us but that might be because we were regular customers. They
even did some "hairball lash-ups" for us when we needed something pretty
much right now.

I believe there would be a market for a technician if he or she would
equip themselves with nice solder/desolder equipment. Sometimes it can
be bought on the cheap when a company goes belly up. Like when BenQ went
under in Europe. The list from the liquidator read like a list of fine
wines. You name it, they had it.

 

[Brian]

Thanks, John. Always good to know, especially if someone has used them.
I'll keep that on file. The web site is ok, they simply list what they can
do. Wish there was a regular email contact other than webmaster on there.

I have used these folks in the past and was very pleased:

http://wdburch.com/



Support during the prototype phase is a real problem these days. Burch did
it for us but that might be because we were regular customers. They even
did some "hairball lash-ups" for us when we needed something pretty much
right now.

I believe there would be a market for a technician if he or she would
equip themselves with nice solder/desolder equipment. Sometimes it can be
bought on the cheap when a company goes belly up. Like when BenQ went
under in Europe. The list from the liquidator read like a list of fine
wines. You name it, they had it.

We do it as a service for even non-existing customers, but it does cost a
bit, mostly because of handling and shipping.

 

[Joerg]

We do it as a service for even non-existing customers, but it does cost a
bit, mostly because of handling and shipping.

Got your company in the address file for next time. What would be nice
is a crude price list. Then people could peruse it and decide "I better
let the pros handles this one".

 

[Tony Burch]

Got your company in the address file for next time. What would be nice is
a crude price list. Then people could peruse it and decide "I better let
the pros handles this one".

Hi,
Yes, I know what you are talking about. The prototyping phase can sometimes
be frustrating because if you can find a good company to outsource the
loading to, you still have to suffer the delays / time and the cost. Also,
if you outsource it is not really practical to do partial loading & power
up, which is sometimes nice when prototyping a design for the first time.

Seriously, depending on your board, it may be possilbe to D.I.Y. load the
board using low cost tools. You don't need to buy a hot-air rework station,
unless you need to pop off chips / swap them. Or unless you are doing BGA.
Just to solder prototypes you can use the techniques at
http://SuperSolderingSecrets.com

I produced all the videos for Super Soldering Secrets. My intention was to
fully reveal as much of the techniques as possible. It's geared for small
companies / start-ups and also advanced hobbyists (enthusiasts on a budget).
The techniques are low-cost and give high quality results for SMT (fine
pitch & chip component) & through hole prototyping. Also for small batch
production.

Check it out and decide if in-sourcing looks like an attractive option for
you, for your current project (or maybe your next one).

Kind regards,
Anthony Burch http://SuperSolderingSecrets.com

 

[Joerg]

Hi,
Yes, I know what you are talking about. The prototyping phase can sometimes
be frustrating because if you can find a good company to outsource the
loading to, you still have to suffer the delays / time and the cost. Also,
if you outsource it is not really practical to do partial loading & power
up, which is sometimes nice when prototyping a design for the first time.

Seriously, depending on your board, it may be possilbe to D.I.Y. load the
board using low cost tools. You don't need to buy a hot-air rework station,
unless you need to pop off chips / swap them. Or unless you are doing BGA.
Just to solder prototypes you can use the techniques at
http://SuperSolderingSecrets.com

I produced all the videos for Super Soldering Secrets. My intention was to
fully reveal as much of the techniques as possible. It's geared for small
companies / start-ups and also advanced hobbyists (enthusiasts on a budget).
The techniques are low-cost and give high quality results for SMT (fine
pitch & chip component) & through hole prototyping. Also for small batch
production.

Check it out and decide if in-sourcing looks like an attractive option for
you, for your current project (or maybe your next one).

Sorry, can't view flash player stuff here :-(

But usually it does involve popping a dead chip off the board first.
Long turn-around times are not much of an issue in the US. For example,
the company above turns around really fast. You aren't related to the
owners of WD Burch, are ya?

 

[Clanger]

Many of us design folks don't have all the fine pitch gear to lift a
super-dense quad pack and solder on a new one. Same goes for some of my
clients, mostly the start-ups. So, are there any service providers that
can do these jobs on a prototype board or two? The usual fabs often
don't like such small jobs although some would reluctantly do it for a
good customer.

Sacramento would be great, or Bay Area if it has to be. There's always
Fedex, so in a pinch even father locations could work.

How about the 3rd party test companies. They usually do rework too.

There are a few Test Houses in the Bay Area (dunno about Sacto).
www.datest.com
www.testinghouse.com

I know Datest does rework, I don't know if TH does too. Last I heard
both of them are in Fremont.

Carl

 

[Tony Burch]

Sorry, can't view flash player stuff here :-(

But usually it does involve popping a dead chip off the board first. Long
turn-around times are not much of an issue in the US. For example, the
company above turns around really fast. You aren't related to the owners
of WD Burch, are ya?

Hi Joerg,
Yes, if you need to pop off the dead chip first then hot air rework is
definitely the easiest.

Just for interest, there's a nice article on low cost DIY hot air rework,
written by Tom Mathews and Timothy Toroni at National Semiconductor. It's
called "Rework within your reach"
http://www.edn.com/contents/images/447009.pdf
[text version at
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA447009 ]

I was going to mention that I didn't think that I was related to WD Burch,
but who knows, maybe distantly. Maybe a keen interest in soldering runs in
the family

Wising you happy prototyping! Kind regards,
Anthony Burch http://SuperSolderingSecrets.com

 

[Joerg]

How about the 3rd party test companies. They usually do rework too.

There are a few Test Houses in the Bay Area (dunno about Sacto).
www.datest.com
www.testinghouse.com

I know Datest does rework, I don't know if TH does too. Last I heard
both of them are in Fremont.

Thanks, Carl. Both in the Wiki file now.

 

[Joerg]

Sorry, can't view flash player stuff here :-(

But usually it does involve popping a dead chip off the board first. Long
turn-around times are not much of an issue in the US. For example, the
company above turns around really fast. You aren't related to the owners
of WD Burch, are ya?

Hi Joerg,
Yes, if you need to pop off the dead chip first then hot air rework is
definitely the easiest.

Just for interest, there's a nice article on low cost DIY hot air rework,
written by Tom Mathews and Timothy Toroni at National Semiconductor. It's
called "Rework within your reach"
http://www.edn.com/contents/images/447009.pdf
[text version at
http://www.edn.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA447009 ]

One thing he doesn't mention is a screen. Sometimes it helps to cut a
little screen and place it over the part so only the chip that you want
to remove sticks out. This avoids blowing away 0402 resistors and such.

I was going to mention that I didn't think that I was related to WD Burch,
but who knows, maybe distantly. Maybe a keen interest in soldering runs in
the family

Who knows. They sure do a fine assembly job.