Reflow Oven recommendation.

JohnR2010

I'm to the point I need to just buy a nice oven but I want to keep it within budget. I found this T962 on Ebay or $172.

Does anyone have input on this oven or another one close in price?

tonyp12

I have the T962 (came with the tmp245 bundle)

Uneven heat and burns parts,
if you have production run you may get it to work after you dialed in the right temp and time after the 3rd try.

I needs a heat diffuser as IR light is just blaring down on the parts, I looking for some metal mesh and it may be a good oven after that.

But for now a Black & Decker FC300 Infrawave Countertop Oven is better. (hard to find)

T Chap

I use it daily, there are some blind spots where it will not heat the solder enough to reflow, but if you learn the areas or mark them then you can stay away from the those areas. I never experienced burning parts like tony says. I like the oven except for the zones that don't heat enough.

JohnR2010

I don't think this oven is for me! I have a hot air rework system I use for now. It works great if I only do a square inch of SMT components at a time. The reason I want an oven is to do a whole board ~4" X 6" at one time and it sounds like If I go with the T962 I will end up with inconstant results.

I guess this is why I see so many home grown solutions based on counter top ovens. Wonder if there is anything out there in the $250 to $350 range that wont burn components or leave cool spots.

Thanks

JohnR2010

@tonyp12 and @TChap, did you guys see this mod to the T962A? Not that I'm interested in adding an Arduino to this oven to run the fan. But later on in the mod (in the comments) they talk about a firmware hack that runs the fan during the heat cycles to circulate air and reduce the hot spots.

Also I wonder what the difference is between the T962 and T962A.

Here is another oven from SMT Max the AS-5001 for around $500 wonder if it is any better. Sounds like all infrared ovens can burn boards??

VonSzarvas

JohnR2010 wrote: »

I wonder what the difference is between the T962 and T962A.

size mainly.

The T962 draw will hold an A5 sheet, the T962A a bit bigger than A4. Although you'd probably not want to completely fill the draw space with actual pcbs!

I've also been using both ovens for some years. Takes a while to get the profiles set up for each board/panel - then they work fine.

Last year I added one of these controllers to one of my ovens, and that made profiling much simpler, and sure improved the consistency:
http://www.estechnical.co.uk/products/reflow-oven-controllers

(But you'd probably also "get there" on the stock oven, if you have the time and patience that I often lack

T Chap

A Quisinart Exact Heat will work fine, but you have to manually increment the temp each minute. I used this for years. I have not installed any of the 962 mods, looks like too much work for me. Like I said, if you find out where the blind spots are the in the oven you can work around it easily. I don't give it a second thought and use it all the time for multiple boards. You have to weigh out whether you want to sink a bunch of time into rigging up ovens and controllers versus actually doing real work. I have not experienced what Tony talks about regarding burning parts, my boards come out perfect. On occasion if a board falls in a blind spot and some parts are not reflowed, very simply slide the board over a little and hit it again. Come to think of it, I may be using the T962A, not the 962. It comes with the Neoden T245 machine. I read about complaints of it smelling bad, but I never experienced any tape burning inside to give off bad smells, maybe they got around to updating it.