Reflow Toaster
| Electronics Area |
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| Hive13 Equipment |
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| List of All Documented Equipment
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| Owner/Loaner: Hive13 |
| Hive13 Asset Tag: None |
| Make/Model: not specified. |
| Arrival Date: 1/13/17 |
| Does it work?: yes |
| Certification Needed?: no |
| Contact: User:Lorin Parker |
| Floorplan: Electronics |
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| Hive13 Project |
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| Reflow Toaster |
| 200px |
| Status: Complete |
| Start Date: 1/1/2013 |
Current Status
Reflow Oven 2.0
Lorin Parker completed a new reflow oven 1/13/17. It is currently fully functional, and will be more thoroughly documented soon. It is an insulated quartz heater convection toaster with 2 degree / sec. Please monitor the toaster during the entire cycle -- it's very fast, you can do it. It can go well over 250 degrees C and is programmable with multiple curves.
Current profile curve programmed is the the standard Kester profile
The oven was tested by the Sparks! group 10/1/2020 and it works! There may be some profile dialing required for more sensitive parts but it was able to cleanly solder some 0603 parts using leaded solder paste. Solder paste is something that eventually we would like to start keeping around but it is NOT a stocked item at this time (December 2020) because it has a limited shelf life and last much longer when refrigerated. Once refrigeration is taken care of for the electronics area, solder paste will follow. If you need any, contact Dave Blundell and some can appear.
Operation
- Put your PCB with solder paste and components in the oven.
- Pull the huge switch to turn on power & convection fan.
- Make sure LCD lights up and shows temperature. (If it says TC error, this means that the thermocouple is probably touching the oven wall & not reading. This will be fastened to some FR4 soon.)
- Press the left red button to start the curve. If you need to stop it for any reason, press the same button again
- When toaster reaches the top of curve (245 C for kester profile), crack the door open 1-2" to start cooling. This is necessary due to considerable insulation and the powerful quartz elements, which make the oven slow to cool. Keep door cracked until temp gets to 100C or so (it will beep then). Best not to open the door completely, as you don't want to cool it so fast that thermal shock is an issue.
- Wait for parts to cool before removing them. 100C isn't hot for solder but it's plenty hot enough to burn you
To do:
- Add USB jack to front (toaster sends data log out 57600kbps serial, and also allows tuning of PID parameters) program other curves, as needed or additional functions.
- The second right button will cycle through options, but currently does nothing...
- Further profile tuning / updates
- Servo / motor to control door for cooling?
- Exhaust fan for cooling?
Notes and Info:
Do not eat solder or solder food. Do not put food in the reflow oven. Use your head. Please.
The new oven uses a Rocket Scream 1.20 reflow shield.
It also features an arduino uno, a 12V DC power supply (inside), a cooling fan in back, a type K thermocouple, and a solid state relay. If relay requires replacement, it must be able to handle 15Amps or more (this is a 1200W oven when going full tilt).
PID last tuned by Lorin Parker. Rocket Scream Basic Firmware and Curve can be found here as well.