On 27 May 2020, at 3:49 pm, Jim Pruitt <jpruitt67@...> wrote:

? I looked through the messages for this group for the last couple years but do not see any discussion about DIY Toaster reflow ovens.? I know it used to be an easy thing to find on the web but I have been searching for a few months now and all the ones Mr. Startpage (pronounced Google) has given me have been 7 to 15 years old and use obsolete and unobtainium parts.? I would love to buy a T962 or T962A but the price is too high for me as I am on a fixed income.? Someone on a British forum said someone was selling T962's on ebay for $129 usd but when I checked the sale it would not sell to USA.? I know the T962 series would require a lot of modifications to make it dependable but that would be easier than building from scratch.

Without something like the T962 series I had seen the Controleo3 but not sure what I need (the $109 kit, the $249 kit, or the $299 kit) and which toaster oven (convection or conventional).?

Does anyone know of a current DIY toaster reflow oven project on the web that would not cost a fortune to build?

I know there was an article in a professional journal about 7 years ago that used a Black and Decker oven from Amazon but I can't find that article and do not remember what journal.? Even if I find it, will it work.

A friend suggested that I use an Arduino but I am not sure what the profile is supposed to look like.? My idea was that it would
1.? Come up to a board heat up temp (100 C maybe)
2.? Hold that temp for some length of time
3.? Measure the board temperature to be soldered until it comes up to temp.
4.? One up to temp then raise temp to solder paste temp (450 C?)
5.? Hold for a time (30 seconds?)
6,? Cool down to original warm up temp (100 C)
7.? Cool down to room temp before opening the door.

Have I missed anything?

Does anyone know of any forums that deal with this type of project?? Does anyone know of a Arduino forum that deals in DIY projects?? I am on a couple facebook groups but see very little in the way of actual projects and it seems that Facebook does not allow sharing files very easily where 开云体育 or Googlegroups do allow easy file sharing.

The object of course is to solder smt parts to pc boards.? One project I have uses a FPGA144 and a QFFN64 chip.? It was suggested that I drag solder them but I do not feel comfortable doing that and the parts were rather expensive and I can't afford to use them for practice.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thank you.

Jim Pruitt

I looked through the messages for this group for the last couple years but do not see any discussion about DIY Toaster reflow ovens.? I know it used to be an easy thing to find on the web but I have been searching for a few months now and all the ones Mr. Startpage (pronounced Google) has given me have been 7 to 15 years old and use obsolete and unobtainium parts.? I would love to buy a T962 or T962A but the price is too high for me as I am on a fixed income.? Someone on a British forum said someone was selling T962's on ebay for $129 usd but when I checked the sale it would not sell to USA.? I know the T962 series would require a lot of modifications to make it dependable but that would be easier than building from scratch.

Without something like the T962 series I had seen the Controleo3 but not sure what I need (the $109 kit, the $249 kit, or the $299 kit) and which toaster oven (convection or conventional).

Does anyone know of a current DIY toaster reflow oven project on the web that would not cost a fortune to build?

I know there was an article in a professional journal about 7 years ago that used a Black and Decker oven from Amazon but I can't find that article and do not remember what journal.? Even if I find it, will it work.

A friend suggested that I use an Arduino but I am not sure what the profile is supposed to look like.? My idea was that it would
1.? Come up to a board heat up temp (100 C maybe)
2.? Hold that temp for some length of time
3.? Measure the board temperature to be soldered until it comes up to temp.
4.? One up to temp then raise temp to solder paste temp (450 C?)
5.? Hold for a time (30 seconds?)
6,? Cool down to original warm up temp (100 C)
7.? Cool down to room temp before opening the door.

Have I missed anything?

Does anyone know of any forums that deal with this type of project?? Does anyone know of a Arduino forum that deals in DIY projects?? I am on a couple facebook groups but see very little in the way of actual projects and it seems that Facebook does not allow sharing files very easily where 开云体育 or Googlegroups do allow easy file sharing.

The object of course is to solder smt parts to pc boards.? One project I have uses a FPGA144 and a QFFN64 chip.? It was suggested that I drag solder them but I do not feel comfortable doing that and the parts were rather expensive and I can't afford to use them for practice.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thank you.

Jim Pruitt

I looked through the messages for this group for the last couple years but do not see any discussion about DIY Toaster reflow ovens.? I know it used to be an easy thing to find on the web but I have been searching for a few months now and all the ones Mr. Startpage (pronounced Google) has given me have been 7 to 15 years old and use obsolete and unobtainium parts.? I would love to buy a T962 or T962A but the price is too high for me as I am on a fixed income.? Someone on a British forum said someone was selling T962's on ebay for $129 usd but when I checked the sale it would not sell to USA.? I know the T962 series would require a lot of modifications to make it dependable but that would be easier than building from scratch.

Without something like the T962 series I had seen the Controleo3 but not sure what I need (the $109 kit, the $249 kit, or the $299 kit) and which toaster oven (convection or conventional).?

Does anyone know of a current DIY toaster reflow oven project on the web that would not cost a fortune to build?

I know there was an article in a professional journal about 7 years ago that used a Black and Decker oven from Amazon but I can't find that article and do not remember what journal.? Even if I find it, will it work.

A friend suggested that I use an Arduino but I am not sure what the profile is supposed to look like.? My idea was that it would
1.? Come up to a board heat up temp (100 C maybe)
2.? Hold that temp for some length of time
3.? Measure the board temperature to be soldered until it comes up to temp.
4.? One up to temp then raise temp to solder paste temp (450 C?)
5.? Hold for a time (30 seconds?)
6,? Cool down to original warm up temp (100 C)
7.? Cool down to room temp before opening the door.

Have I missed anything?

Does anyone know of any forums that deal with this type of project?? Does anyone know of a Arduino forum that deals in DIY projects?? I am on a couple facebook groups but see very little in the way of actual projects and it seems that Facebook does not allow sharing files very easily where 开云体育 or Googlegroups do allow easy file sharing.

The object of course is to solder smt parts to pc boards.? One project I have uses a FPGA144 and a QFFN64 chip.? It was suggested that I drag solder them but I do not feel comfortable doing that and the parts were rather expensive and I can't afford to use them for practice.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thank you.

Jim Pruitt

On May 27, 2020, at 3:05 PM, Harvey Altstadter <hrconsult@...> wrote:

After looking at your profile, i cave a comment or two.

Preheat to 100°C is a good idea to drive off the volatiles in the paste. This will lessen the possibility of boiling flux causing the part to move, will also reduce the formation of solder balls. Heating to 450°C is much too high. Tin Lead eutectic solder melts at 183°C, and normal soldering temperature should be around 215° to 220°C. The profiles on the manufacturer datasheet are set up for belt furnace soldering. In that process, the board is on a steel belt that moves at precise speed through several tightly controlled temperature zones. The belt speed and the zone length determine the dwell time at each temperature. That said, I would guess that trying to get that type of profile in a reflow oven would be difficult. I am thinking that the thermal response would be too slow. Preheat and cool down would probably be better served outside the oven on a hotplate.
Harvey (the other one) Altstadter

Using the subject of your message post in Google, I found this DIY project:


It appears to be a pretty complete project, includes all of the necessary design files for having the PCB made, the source and binary code for programming the controller, how to modify the toaster oven, etc. ?Seems to be a pretty complete project. ?
The author doesn't specify which oven he used, but did say the oven was a 1300 watt unit. ?I'd suggest that you choose an oven that has a cavity that's appropriately sized for the projects that you intend to use it for. Remember, the larger the oven, the more time it takes to heat the air & objects inside.. ?
Shorter time to heat up means better control of your soldering process.

HTH,
Dave M

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Jean-Paul Louis via groups.io
Sent: Thursday, 28 May 2020 5:17 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [homebrewpcbs] DIY Toaster Reflow oven

I also have a comment about the preheat. It is usually dependent on the type
of flux used in the solder paste. But all my experience with it was that the
preheat is needed to ACTIVATE the flux, not just drive out the volatile out of
the paste. And to do that, preheat was more like 130 degrees C.
Usually, the part data sheet include a typical solder profile, but the solder
paste provider might have a better one.
Like you said, peak temperature should be 30 seconds around 215 degrees C.
Cool down is always as fast as you can, but you need to stay below the stress
limit for the component which is around 2 degrees per second.

Just my two cents,
Jean-Paul
N1JPL

On May 27, 2020, at 3:05 PM, Harvey Altstadter <hrconsult@...>

wrote:

After looking at your profile, i cave a comment or two.

Preheat to 100°C is a good idea to drive off the volatiles in the paste. This

will lessen the possibility of boiling flux causing the part to move, will also
reduce the formation of solder balls. Heating to 450°C is much too high. Tin
Lead eutectic solder melts at 183°C, and normal soldering temperature
should be around 215° to 220°C. The profiles on the manufacturer datasheet
are set up for belt furnace soldering. In that process, the board is on a steel
belt that moves at precise speed through several tightly controlled
temperature zones. The belt speed and the zone length determine the dwell
time at each temperature. That said, I would guess that trying to get that
type of profile in a reflow oven would be difficult. I am thinking that the
thermal response would be too slow. Preheat and cool down would probably
be better served outside the oven on a hotplate.

Harvey (the other one) Altstadter

If you're cost-conscience or want to keep it simple, buy one of the PID oven controllers available from AMAZON. I bought one that was ~$35 and can hold ~+/-1 deg C.? It has no time/temp function but that may be possible manually or by externally controlling the TEMP SET button(s) with your Arduino, through opto-isolators.

Make sure you
- Buy a temp controller that operates under PID and has an Auto-Tune function. Mine came with an external 40A solid state relay so can control a large oven.
- That your oven can be switched to permanently on, under it's own temp control (set to a temp above the controller's temp-set) which you can use as a safety override.

Good luck,

Mike

Discussion of electronic design usually takes place on the electronics101 list. I found lots of hits there.

/g/electronics101/search?q=reflow+oven

It seems fairly simple. Get a toaster oven, preferably a convection toaster oven. Wire up a box with an Arduino in it with thermocouple interface, screen, keyboard and/or rotary controller of some kind, and some way to control the AC line. Put an outlet on it, plug the toaster oven into it. Suspend the thermocouple just above the board. Set the temperature control on the convection toaster oven just high enough that it never turns off during normal operation, but acts as a safety.

Everything else is programming. As others have pointed out, you can look up the preheat, hold, melt, hold, cooldown temperatures, times, and rates in the literature some manufacturers of parts make public.

You can get fancy and modify it more, mounting everything in the toaster oven, but then you have heat to contend with.

--
Steven Greenfield AE7HD

?

Hello Steve.

I took your Electronics101 forum link but most if not all of the messages were several years old.

I think it interesting that the discussions about DIY Toaster reflow ovens was on the Electronics101 forum and not on this forum that I thought was for printed circuit board related topics.

One of the later threads (2013 as I recall) suggested rocketscream but the link did not work.? Going to Rocketscream it did look interesting.? They have a Arduino based controller version 2 for $30 but it is out of stock.? It said the user would also have to buy a 40 amp solid state relay and a MAX31856 thermocouple AD and a thermocouple.

It appears that many or most are building the controller in a separate box and then plugging the toaster oven in to that via the SSR.

I have searched quite a bit for DIY toaster oven articles and the ones I found were several years old and see that places like Adafruit, Sparkfun,? and a couple others at one time had a solution but have since discontinued them.? Does that mean there is little or no interest any more?? Are most builders getting the Chinese board houses to preinstall the smt parts?? By the way,? if you do that then you have to also pay the tariff? whereas? the pc board does not incur the tariff charge.

With the current popularity of the Arduino I would have thought there would be a lot of DIY web page articles to use an Arduino or at least the ATMega328P (like the Rocketscream controller). I would like something like that as I have several (28 but who is counting) blank ATMega328P dip IC's.

If I am understanding the theory right all I need is one of the $30 or so Chinese combos of a digital pid and solid state relay and a thermocouple.? What I am not sure about is how or if I can set the warm up temp and then have it go to the reflow temp and then back down or if I have to do that manually or with some type of other controller.

What is the consensus, is it better to build a reflow toaster oven or build a DIY hotplate reflow system?? I know that Johan Holstein briefly talked about doing a hotplate solution on his RadioStuff forum but never finished the project (as near as I could tell) or published it on his web page.

Thank you.

Jim Pruitt

Discussion of electronic design usually takes place on the electronics101 list. I found lots of hits there.

/g/electronics101/search?q=reflow+oven

It seems fairly simple. Get a toaster oven, preferably a convection toaster oven. Wire up a box with an Arduino in it with thermocouple interface, screen, keyboard and/or rotary controller of some kind, and some way to control the AC line. Put an outlet on it, plug the toaster oven into it. Suspend the thermocouple just above the board. Set the temperature control on the convection toaster oven just high enough that it never turns off during normal operation, but acts as a safety.

Everything else is programming. As others have pointed out, you can look up the preheat, hold, melt, hold, cooldown temperatures, times, and rates in the literature some manufacturers of parts make public.

You can get fancy and modify it more, mounting everything in the toaster oven, but then you have heat to contend with.

--
Steven Greenfield AE7HD

?

?

Hello Steve.

I took your Electronics101 forum link but most if not all of the messages were several years old.

I think it interesting that the discussions about DIY Toaster reflow ovens was on the Electronics101 forum and not on this forum that I thought was for printed circuit board related topics.

One of the later threads (2013 as I recall) suggested rocketscream but the link did not work.? Going to Rocketscream it did look interesting.? They have a Arduino based controller version 2 for $30 but it is out of stock.? It said the user would also have to buy a 40 amp solid state relay and a MAX31856 thermocouple AD and a thermocouple.

It appears that many or most are building the controller in a separate box and then plugging the toaster oven in to that via the SSR.

I have searched quite a bit for DIY toaster oven articles and the ones I found were several years old and see that places like Adafruit, Sparkfun,? and a couple others at one time had a solution but have since discontinued them.? Does that mean there is little or no interest any more?? Are most builders getting the Chinese board houses to preinstall the smt parts?? By the way,? if you do that then you have to also pay the tariff? whereas? the pc board does not incur the tariff charge.

With the current popularity of the Arduino I would have thought there would be a lot of DIY web page articles to use an Arduino or at least the ATMega328P (like the Rocketscream controller). I would like something like that as I have several (28 but who is counting) blank ATMega328P dip IC's.

If I am understanding the theory right all I need is one of the $30 or so Chinese combos of a digital pid and solid state relay and a thermocouple.? What I am not sure about is how or if I can set the warm up temp and then have it go to the reflow temp and then back down or if I have to do that manually or with some type of other controller.

What is the consensus, is it better to build a reflow toaster oven or build a DIY hotplate reflow system?? I know that Johan Holstein briefly talked about doing a hotplate solution on his RadioStuff forum but never finished the project (as near as I could tell) or published it on his web page.

Thank you.

Jim Pruitt

Discussion of electronic design usually takes place on the electronics101 list. I found lots of hits there.

/g/electronics101/search?q=reflow+oven

It seems fairly simple. Get a toaster oven, preferably a convection toaster oven. Wire up a box with an Arduino in it with thermocouple interface, screen, keyboard and/or rotary controller of some kind, and some way to control the AC line. Put an outlet on it, plug the toaster oven into it. Suspend the thermocouple just above the board. Set the temperature control on the convection toaster oven just high enough that it never turns off during normal operation, but acts as a safety.

Everything else is programming. As others have pointed out, you can look up the preheat, hold, melt, hold, cooldown temperatures, times, and rates in the literature some manufacturers of parts make public.

You can get fancy and modify it more, mounting everything in the toaster oven, but then you have heat to contend with.

--
Steven Greenfield AE7HD

?