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From: T on 12 Feb 2010 21:15
In article <MyNameForward-A02A8F.12150711022010(a)mail.eternal-
september.org>, MyNameForward(a)ReplaceWithMyVices.Com.invalid says...
>
> In article <v7GdnVDM86AppOnWnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d(a)giganews.com>,
> "vtech9815" <vtech9815(a)n_o_s_p_a_m.yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm in need of a reflow oven specifically an lead-free one. I need to
> > reflow at least a 100 boards a week. I google most of the company locally
> > in CA. I'm thinking of buying one of my vendor in Corona. I made an
> > appointment tomarrow to go visit and see their ovens. I saw images of it
> > and the specification is in my needs. http://www.smtmax.com/m2-13.html .
> > I'm looking at the 5 zone reflow oven it look very descent and the size of
> > the unit is perfect for my working area. The price is 4K for AE-R330A and
> > close to 6K for AE-R530C. That price is very reasonable than Manncorp and
> > other vendor. Any suggestion?
> >
> > ---------------------------------------
> > Posted through http://www.Electronics-Related.com
>
> Gosh, you sure profile like a spammer for stmax pretending to be an
> electronics repair tech on the 'net.
>
> Black and Decker makes a fine toaster oven that is available immediately
> at numerous vendors, and will easily process 100 boards a week.

Or a Rival Electric skillet. Like I said, the guys at Sparkfun figured
that one out and it works for them.


From: Raveninghorde on 13 Feb 2010 07:13
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:09:08 -0600, "vtech9815"
<vtech9815(a)n_o_s_p_a_m.yahoo.com> wrote:

>I'm in need of a reflow oven specifically an lead-free one. I need to
>reflow at least a 100 boards a week. I google most of the company locally
>in CA. I'm thinking of buying one of my vendor in Corona. I made an
>appointment tomarrow to go visit and see their ovens. I saw images of it
>and the specification is in my needs. http://www.smtmax.com/m2-13.html .
>I'm looking at the 5 zone reflow oven it look very descent and the size of
>the unit is perfect for my working area. The price is 4K for AE-R330A and
>close to 6K for AE-R530C. That price is very reasonable than Manncorp and
>other vendor. Any suggestion?
>
>---------------------------------------
>Posted through http://www.Electronics-Related.com

What sort of parts are you using?

If you are using semis and passives that's one thing. If you need to
solder half inch square inductors and large connectors then that's
another.

Here's my "new" machine before installation.

http://www.zen88234.zen.co.uk/photos/hotflow.jpg

I needed something this size to cope with inductors.
From: Jon Elson on 18 Feb 2010 18:53
keithw86(a)gmail.com wrote:

> Five zones is marginal for a RoHS process. We're having problems
> (QFNs in particular) with our five-zone oven. The owner is almost
> convinced that we need a seven or nine zone oven.

I'm a small manufacturer. I have a used Philips CSM-84 P&P machine,
but the nature of my business is that I make batches of 12 - 25 boards
at a time. Having small batches like this done by an assembly shop is
very expensive. I got a "GE" chinese-made toaster oven at Wal-Mart, as
it was the biggest one they had. I bought an Omega ramp and soak
temperature controller on eBay. I tied an SSR in series with the oven's
thermostat, and poked a thermocouple into the oven. A first run showed
that the boards heated up WAY above the thermocouple temperature, so in
desperation to make some boards, I poked the thermocouple wire into an
empty through hole in one of the boards in the middle of the oven. I
ramp to 180 C in 2 minutes, then ramp to 230 - 248 C (depending on board
and solder type) and ramp back down. The results have been excellent!
I occasionally get a few joints right near the edge of the oven that
don't completely flow, and I know to watch for that. I am using Warton
lead-free solder from the UK, it works WAY better than the Kester
lead-free I used before, but is a bit expensive. I use some Taiwan
leaded solder cream for SnPb boards, and it works well, too.
I'm still dialing-in the solder stencil apertures to get rid of solder
bridging, but this process works REALLY well in the volumes I do. I
would have no problem doing 100 boards a week, assuming they'd fit in my
oven. Most of my boards are small enough I can get a couple in the oven
at a time.

I have everything from 0805 passives to 0.4 mm lead pitch quad flat
packs on my boards. The 0805-size stuff is a piece of cake, I still
have to deal with bridging on the fine-pitch parts, but they reflow
great with this system.

Jon


From: krw on 19 Feb 2010 19:31
On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:53:47 -0600, Jon Elson <jmelson(a)wustl.edu>
wrote:

>keithw86(a)gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Five zones is marginal for a RoHS process. We're having problems
>> (QFNs in particular) with our five-zone oven. The owner is almost
>> convinced that we need a seven or nine zone oven.
>
>I'm a small manufacturer. I have a used Philips CSM-84 P&P machine,
>but the nature of my business is that I make batches of 12 - 25 boards
>at a time.

That's about our run size (30) on one of the boards. OTOH, it takes
two days (one top, one bottom) for the pick-n-place machine to do its
thing to 1500 components. ;-)

>Having small batches like this done by an assembly shop is
>very expensive. I got a "GE" chinese-made toaster oven at Wal-Mart, as
>it was the biggest one they had. I bought an Omega ramp and soak
>temperature controller on eBay. I tied an SSR in series with the oven's
>thermostat, and poked a thermocouple into the oven. A first run showed
>that the boards heated up WAY above the thermocouple temperature, so in
>desperation to make some boards, I poked the thermocouple wire into an
>empty through hole in one of the boards in the middle of the oven. I
>ramp to 180 C in 2 minutes, then ramp to 230 - 248 C (depending on board
>and solder type) and ramp back down. The results have been excellent!
>I occasionally get a few joints right near the edge of the oven that
>don't completely flow, and I know to watch for that. I am using Warton
>lead-free solder from the UK, it works WAY better than the Kester
>lead-free I used before, but is a bit expensive. I use some Taiwan
>leaded solder cream for SnPb boards, and it works well, too.
>I'm still dialing-in the solder stencil apertures to get rid of solder
>bridging, but this process works REALLY well in the volumes I do. I
>would have no problem doing 100 boards a week, assuming they'd fit in my
>oven. Most of my boards are small enough I can get a couple in the oven
>at a time.

Are you doing RoHS? We've found that RoHS processes are *very* picky.
The corner between burning passive components and poor reflow on
"fine" pitch actives, particularly on QFNs, is very tight. Lead
processes were trivial.

>I have everything from 0805 passives to 0.4 mm lead pitch quad flat
>packs on my boards. The 0805-size stuff is a piece of cake, I still
>have to deal with bridging on the fine-pitch parts, but they reflow
>great with this system.

We don't do anything under .5mm in QFPs or .8mm in BGA but that's not
the problem here. It's the passives that tend to burn and QFNs that
don't flow well.
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