f205v
Member
I do really envy your reworking station for soldering/desoldering.
Can you please share what it is?
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It's too late, my MCU1 Died....
- Thread starter Muzzman1
- Start date
Can you please share what it is?
whitex
Well-Known Member
Sure, for the rework station just search ebay for "IR6500" to find the best price+delivery option for your location. In the US it costs ~$500 and looks like this when setup.
It's not the cheapest setup (you can get a hotplate + hot air gun combo for well below $200) but I personally like this one best for the price. It has the thermocouple feedback for the top of the board (you place it near the chip as shown below) so I don't overcook my boards, and a PC interface with software to control and monitor the temperature profile (you can do it from the machine itself, but it's so much easier on a computer - if you end up buying one, just a hint, the software has one big flaw, it requires the COM port of the machine to be COM1, which you can override in Windows, but it would have been nice if they allowed that as a setting). This rework station works well for me to do a one-off jobs here and there. The only thing I wish I had, which exists in multi-thousand dollar industrial grade machines, is an optimal chip alignment, but I'm fine spending a little extra time aligning by hand and not have to pay $3K or more for a machine with one (some go up to $25K). When the silkscreen doesn't match the chip outline (like in the case of emmc on Tesla Tegra board), I just use this trick below, though in a pinch I can manually align using a microscope and some other tricks (search youtube for BGA rework tricks).
One thing that some people overlook when planning to get such a setup is you're going to need a fume exhaust of some type (it doesn't come with the station). The boards will smoke when reworking and you don't want to be breathing this stuff up. The smoke goes nicely go up the upper heater in the IR6500 even if its internal fan is not on (I keep it off during the temp ramp, my home-made exhaust placed above the upper heater takes all the smoke away just fine).
Lastly, if you're going to do electronics rework, you will need a soldering iron, probably a microscope (you can see mine in my previous post), hot air gun comes handy, supplies such as flux, solder wick, etc. I'm just mentioning it in case you are starting from scratch - just the rework station alone doesn't get you there 100%.
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f205v
Member
@whitex thank you so much for info and pics!
I'm all set up to work on pass-through components, and from time to time I do my stint on some surface mounted chips.
Chip placements has always been my weak spot, and I also suffer from a mild condition of hand trembling, which makes working on SM chips particularly difficult.
I'll have a look at this IR6500
I'm all set up to work on pass-through components, and from time to time I do my stint on some surface mounted chips.
Chip placements has always been my weak spot, and I also suffer from a mild condition of hand trembling, which makes working on SM chips particularly difficult.
I'll have a look at this IR6500
whitex
Well-Known Member
You're welcome. The cheapest rework stations I found with optical alignment and auto-place were over $3K. However, I was thinking that it's probably possible to build a much cheaper optical alignment and placement machine using some stepper motors (maybe a cheap CNC machine or 3D printer) and some USB cameras. I just never had the pressing need to do it. You might want to check out this video of what is possible if you're willing to invest the time to build it - the setup in this video might actually help you "as is" with some precision soldering (you can adjust the joystick sensitivity in software).@whitex thank you so much for info and pics!
I'm all set up to work on pass-through components, and from time to time I do my stint on some surface mounted chips.
Chip placements has always been my weak spot, and I also suffer from a mild condition of hand trembling, which makes working on SM chips particularly difficult.
I'll have a look at this IR6500
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yes I’m in Orange County. Shipping is typically a little faster. But feel free to reach out to me it appleguru.
dark cloud
Active Member
Well my mcu rebooted while backing into a parking spot up 2 weeks ago. It was pretty shocking especially with the backup camera just going off. The whole MCU went off for several minutes. Next day it went off again while driving 70 mph. Since then, no issues... Hoping my recently replaced MCU isn't going....
Akikiki
A'-Lo-HA ! y'all
What you described sounds like a failing eMMC. I guess you know that the MCU is the name given to the complete assembly. The eMMC is a chip mounted on the Tegra board. There's also several other boards and the mainboard.
And there's also the center screen. Did they replace your MCU previously and because of a failing eMMC or something else - some other problem, such as the screen being bad?
If your eMMC is failing now, you could be/should be covered by the warranty that includes specific portions of the car for 4 years, not 1 year. If I were you, I would print a copy of this, and take my invoice in to my SC and have a chat with them regarding your current problem. The objective is to confirm that your current status will include replacement under warranty if it fails again/soon.
MCU and Touchscreen warranty is good for 4 years from date of purchase
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...sories-body-repair-limited-warranty-en-us.pdf
Vehicle Warranty
Repair or replacement of Tesla-branded parts purchased directly from Tesla, over-the-counter, online or purchased and installed by Tesla Service or a Tesla Body Shop, may be covered under the Tesla Parts, Body & Paint Repair Limited Warranty.
And there's also the center screen. Did they replace your MCU previously and because of a failing eMMC or something else - some other problem, such as the screen being bad?
If your eMMC is failing now, you could be/should be covered by the warranty that includes specific portions of the car for 4 years, not 1 year. If I were you, I would print a copy of this, and take my invoice in to my SC and have a chat with them regarding your current problem. The objective is to confirm that your current status will include replacement under warranty if it fails again/soon.
MCU and Touchscreen warranty is good for 4 years from date of purchase
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default...sories-body-repair-limited-warranty-en-us.pdf
Vehicle Warranty
Repair or replacement of Tesla-branded parts purchased directly from Tesla, over-the-counter, online or purchased and installed by Tesla Service or a Tesla Body Shop, may be covered under the Tesla Parts, Body & Paint Repair Limited Warranty.
Have you had the chance to do this? I'd love to know where you read how to use teh 64GB chip in a 32BG mode for redundancy?
that’s pSLC mode. It’s a normal emmc feature on MLC EMMCs and it’s awesome (increases read/write speeds, increases reliability, increases lifetime of the hardware... only trade off is half of the capacity)
You can even buy emmcs pre-configured for that mode. Every emmc I replace goes in pSLC mode; I typically configure the entire flash to enhanced mode for the most benefit.
(and in case anyone is wondering, we haven’t yet found a good “real” SLC emmc option that is compatible. But MLC emmcs in pSLC mode really should outlast the rest of the car).
whitex
Well-Known Member
You can read about it right in the Swissbit datasheet or product brochure. The chip I have in my MCU1 right now came as 32GB pSLC, which has some performance advantages over re-configuring it youself (see my post here comparing the different options, and another post here explaining why it's a good idea to use pSLC), but I did reconfigure a 32GB Swissbit EM-20 chip I had into a 16GB pSLC mode, and it worked just fine in MCU1. I believe Tony at @EV-Fixme uses pSLC option too if you do it through his service.
You can use the mmc Linux utility to perform the reconfiguration (use "mmc enh_area_set" command, but remember this is a one time operation only, though you can use "-n" instead of "-y" if you want to do a trial run). Use "mmc extcsd read /dev/{your mmc blk device here}" to see the max size to use for enhanced area. Here is me re-configuring a 16GB MLC part to a 8GB pSLC part (trial run first, then actual one-time operation):
IMPORTANT NOTE: you need an MMC controller to do that - SD chip reader connected to SDIO enabled SD slot should do. Most USB chip readers do pass through mmc commands, they just present the emmc chip as generic storage. You can always just buy the EM-26 series chip and not worry about it.
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I think better is to stop the problem at its source. I'm using a script that turns off the worst offender, cid-updater, which writes a blizzard of info to the eMMC (/var/log/syslog). It's only needed when upgrading firmware yet it's constantly spamming the system log with chatter.
I haven't updated my wiki yet though, with the latest version of the scripts. Will do so soon.
I also have a script which remounts /var/log to RAM, but IMHO it's better to have non-volatile logs.
I haven't updated my wiki yet though, with the latest version of the scripts. Will do so soon.
I also have a script which remounts /var/log to RAM, but IMHO it's better to have non-volatile logs.
I generally buy the EM-26 preconfigured, however 32/16 gig chips are sometimes hard to get so I do set EM-20 32 into pslc when im in a bind getting chips. I'm also still looking for a better chip, but will use this till I find something better.
Akikiki
A'-Lo-HA ! y'all
Slightly new question for anyone here. There's a rumor going around that Tesla has switched from their 8GB chip to a larger (maybe better quality too) one to slow down the wear in most recent refurbished MCUs. This likely would have occurred in the last couple of months if true. And I suspect someone is responsible, they have learned to do it from you guys. Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? lol
I've heard that but don't think it's true. If anyone in the area has one of these rumored upgrade I would pull their mcu for free to verify. I will also put it back in for free.
Is there any way to ask the car what the size of the emmc is?
Thanks for upgrading my emmc - it’s still working great.
