My new toy ... SMT reflow oven
Beau Schwabe
Posts: 6,566
Uhhhh Ohhh .... What could I possibly do with this? ... only thing I can say is that I should have gotten one of these a LONG time ago. It's like Christmas, and I know just enough to be dangerous <- well maybe a little more than just enough.
I feel like a 3-year old with a hammer ! Everything MUST be hit.
BTW) ...Yes, that is a prosthetic hand on the table.
My eight test boards with minimal through-hole components came through with 100% yield with about 30 SMT components per board :-)
I feel like a 3-year old with a hammer ! Everything MUST be hit.
BTW) ...Yes, that is a prosthetic hand on the table.
My eight test boards with minimal through-hole components came through with 100% yield with about 30 SMT components per board :-)
Comments
Ran 20x boards last week with some 0402 parts and 0.5mm pitch parts. All hand placed. Not even a touch up required. Cannot beat a stencil from oshstencils.com
Requires really steady hands which I no longer have. And the tweezers just seem to have enough surface tension to not drop the parts precisely when you want.
It certainly beats hand soldering these parts!
Sneezing prohibited
Beau, a tip. I dry run my oven thru two cycles before doing real boards. It heats up the whole oven nicely first.
C'mon! I can't be the only one that thought that these were puns!
The T-962 does look quite a bit better than my Black & Decker convection oven setup.
Enjoy that new toy!
What are the boards you made for?
I think 200 bucks for a real oven is better than a Black and Decker.
re: OSH Stencils " Cannot beat a stencil from oshstencils.com"
Thanks! for the link Ray.
http://wzyingxing.en.made-in-china.com/product/yXPmeiMECkcI/China-T-962-Desktop-Reflow-Oven-Infrared-IC-Heater-PCB-Soldering-Machine.html
T-962 Desktop Reflow Oven, Infrared IC Heater, PCB Soldering Machine
T-962 Desktop Reflow Oven, Infrared IC Heater, PCB Soldering Machine pictures & photos
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The boards are for an Ethernet project I was contracted to do ... all said and done there will be 100+ boards.
I bought the machine on ebay for about $200 and toyed with making my own from a toaster oven for sometime, but even if I went that route I would need to calibrate and write/obtain software ... this way everything was already done. Plus, this oven is from the same company of a slightly larger machine that we use at work, that has produced thousands of boards... there was no learning curve, and I knew the product was reliable.
Running some QFN parts right now... I'm not holding my breath, I didn't have a stencil, but I did use a syringe with a very small hole (<-after pulling the needle out with a pair of pliers)
EDIT: QFN will need more practice and a stencil .... the chip is 3mm x 3mm with 4 pins on a side ... 12 pins look to be good out of the 16. .... Sigh
Bob, I believe the "C" model will give you a (just ?) high enough temperature to do RoHS lead-free solder. The others will not. We just ordered the big brother with a pass through conveyor. Also with the "C" option.
It is supposed to ship tomorrow, along with the Neoden 4 vision pick and place machine.
Looking forward to it.... should be a lot of fun replacing our older Excellon placers.
Cheers,
Peter (pjv)
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/SMD4300SNL250T3/SMD4300SNL250T3-ND/3645041
Nice little oven. I use a toaster oven, but yes, having a controlled temp cycle is much easier.
Thanks for sharing. I will have to try that once we start embracing RoHS.
Cheers,
Peter (pjv)
I may have been building PCBAs for my day job for 24 years, but I am not a chemist. With that said, I did notice that the MSDS calls out similar acids (although synthetic instead of organic) to the Kester HM531 water soluble paste I use which cannot be left on boards. So, if it truly is a "water soluble" flux in the paste, you should be cleaning 100% of your boards with hot water since water soluble flux is corrosive and should never be left on PCBAs in any amount. (Kester specs out 120-140F for the water temp)
With a QFN, you will have flux residue trapped in the voiding that will exist within the center pad as well as in the perimeter pins. Minor voiding is typical of QFNs, so that isn't the problem, but leaving water soluble flux trapped inside such voids will be. It is possible that the synthetic flux from chipquik is "non-corrosive" after reflow as well which is different than organics.
One test that you could do many years ago, was to put a pencil eraser sized amount on a bare copper PCB, reflow it, then leave it alone for a week. Then, check the copper under a microscope and check it's integrity. Water soluble flux will show evidence of eating away at the copper.
I will apologize upfront if you are already aware of all this.
re:Bob, I believe the "C" model will give you a (just ?) high enough temperature to do RoHS lead-free solder. The others will not.
Beau said :I've been running Lead Free on the default "wave 3" using this water soluble paste ...
In the Digikey link that Beau provided I did notice that it say
"Lead Free Status / RoHS Status Lead free / RoHS Compliant"
We have one of those that is labeled "T-962A" and we have found that the timer is WAY off.
You might want to look at that on yours.
We've had good luck with ours. We haven't used it a lot, but it does the job when we need it.
Bean
I tried lead-free for a while, but eventually gave up and went back to leaded.
I even tried custom profiles, but couldn't find any way to get it to work reliably and not melt plastic parts.
I think I've decided that the PCB color and part color can affect performance.
I've got the bigger version at work and it pretty much works the same way.
Before I got mine, I saw a complaint about smell from theirs due to cheap tape used inside.
I didn't have that problem though.
Which 'bigger' model do you have?
I just bought a new 960 conveyor style. It's presently stuck in customs, and your comments concern me! Good thing it was not a ton of money. Maybe a more expensive unit would have been better.
Guess we'll find out shortly.
Cheers,
Peter (pjv)
What I have at home (just went and looked) is a T762 (no A).
What I have at work looks almost the same, but is bigger and higher wattage...
Smile. no way. My wife wont let me use her oven to bake boards so she is not sticking any pies into mine!
The silk screen managed to get printed backwards on the prototype PCB board, but other than that the board is correct. After designing the PCB board, I am now working on writing the software. Everything works, just needs to be orchestrated. Just a couple places where I had to solder the SMT by hand in testing a couple different board options.
re:couple places where I had to solder the SMT by hand in testing a couple different board options.
Look's Great! how to you do the bigger components in the Oven? Do you do everything at once?
Are there any components on the other side?