I left my backup oven in the Electronics room for all your SMD needs, so long as all your needs require exactly this:
- Reflow curve is setup for lead based solder (with peak temp around 220C…i don’t remember the exact temp off hand) Please do not change the curve, if you need a different curve to reflow your board…buy/make your own oven.
- There is one plug for the control and one for the heating element, plug them both in to use the reflow oven. Unplugging both of them is probably a good idea when not in use.
- There is one thermocouple that is taped to the back of the inside of the oven, insure that it is secured to the back of the oven and as close to the surface of your pcb as possible (without touching it). If the probe touches the metal shelf in the oven it will error out the controller and you will need to reposition it and start the process over.
- As you would expect, sometimes the janky oven acts like a janky oven…most of the time when this happens the ramp up from soak to reflow hangs at around 160C. If this happens I will open the oven door and blow a bit of cool air into the oven for a second or so. This will normally drop the temp a few degrees and as the controller compensates for the drop it gets past 160C and continues on the rest of the curve.
Additional Info:
I used this oven to flow 50+ boards a few hours ago at the space…so it’s working.
Boards place along the perimeter of the shelf may need to be rerun through a second time…it’s a $16 toaster oven, it has hot/cool spots.
The controller, for those interested is comprised of an Arduino Uno and a Rocket Scream shield, there is also a copper heatsinked solid state relay from Tanner’s.
Tanner also stocks solder paste, although you’ll have to double check to see if it’s Pb solder.
You can get cheap solder stencils from www.oshstencil.com and cheap boards from www.seeedstudio.com
To use the oven: plug in both cords, flip the toggle switch to turn on the controller and press the black button to start.
The button de-bounce within arduino sketch leaves something to be desired but it’s not bad enough to re-write, just know that you may need to push the button a few times before it registers. The status on the LCD will change from “Ready” to “warming up” when the button push has been registered.
As the picture and oven clearly show this oven does not belong to DMS, it is on loan from Brandon Dunson. I did not get permission from anyone to leave this at the space, if it’s a problem and/or not wanted in the electronics room I will be glad to remove it.