Hi Tron,
? Thanks for the info. I looked at a few inexpensive ones but after reading the reviews it seems the more experienced people said a 0.5 objective lens was a must for being able to see more of the board, and that 20x was useless for the particular brand and model they were referring to. I don't mind paying up a little more for a good microscope but I am talking $750 max or somewhere around there. I must tell everybody I am just a hobbyist with a desire to learn so my projects have a professional look to them and that I can be proud of my work. Also, thanks for the link to that reflow oven. I am a man of many interests and projects so I may actually make one of those. I have never used lead free solder but I assume one could use 60/40 regular solder with a temp change. How many hours does it really take to reflow solder a small pcb?
Thanks,
Dave
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On 10/31/2019 10:57 PM, tron eee wrote:
@Dave,
I too went through the process of attempting to resolve the problem of soldering SMD components. I tried a variety of USB Microscopes because they were inexpensive while the vendors were promising performance that simply wasn't good enough. However, microscope also have their foibles. I came to find that its best to call the microscope company and tell'm your budget and your goal. If they are an authentic company, they'll help you make the correct choice.
If you are just soldering a few 1206 and 806s here and there, well its fairly easy to solder these by hand using a temperature controlled pencile soldering iron. If however, you are doing a bunch of boards with many different sized SMDs, I recommend ya take the extra effort to fabricate an SMD oven. The ovens are simple to make and are VERY easy and effective.
I used a Black & Decker 1200 Watt InfraWave toaster oven which have low mass 'crystal' heater elements that exhibit low thermal inertia.
Check out this inexpensive SMD oven controller and homebrew website.
tron nee
