Reflow Oven

Up until now i have be just using a solder station and hotair to re-flow my boards.

So i decided to bite the bullet and ignore the indifferent reviews and invest in a relatively cheap and cheerful Chinese IR re-flow oven - a T962A.

Came in 1 day (rather surprised) - very well packaged with plenty of bubble wrap and foam.

Opened the manual and just about wet myself with laughter at the Chinglish.

Chucked in 4 SPI Hubs pushed the GO button and wandered off for a coffee, came back in 7 mins - opened the draw…4 perfectly toasted PCB’s

First impressions - excellent results, happy i ignored the reviews and 100x easier than the hot air :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Did you check out Dangerous Prototypes’ review and video of it before you lashed out? Seems like you’re stepping up in the maker world - next a PnP machine? DP have one of those too :slight_smile:

Yeah i read lots of good / bad reviews…
Glad i ignored them as so far works a treat…
Tweezers for now :smiley:

ÂŁ300 delivered
ÂŁ200 for the smaller one

Hi Justin,

I have the very same unit. The only advise I would offer is to watch it for heat as internally the tape they use to secure the insulation is not that temperature resistant. My unit was basically masking take.

No biggy to change if you want a little more safety in mind. I bought some high temperature tape from Farnell and all is fine now and the smell is also gone :slight_smile:

So-called Kapton tape?

@ Dave McLaughlin - Thanks Dave, yeah i saw a few posts about the internal tape :smiley:

Being a typical Kiwi - “She’ll be right” i might get around to changing the tape…

Nice! Time to open seafood place and start cooking those Octopuses! :smiley:

2 Likes

:wink:

Now I know what I want for Christmas…

Have toasted another 10 boards, mixture of 0603’s, little SC-70’s, IC’s, buttons and plastic switches.

all perfectly cooked and no melted plastic.

:slight_smile:

Sockets are oven toasted as well?

yup

@ FireyFate - got your tracking number from DF yet? :smiley:

This is good to know, im probably going to get one of those for my next project…

@ HughB - yeah, works a treat…

what’s the next project pilgrim? :whistle: tehehe…

Hmmm… the smaller model goes on eBay shipped for $240 or Best Offer. I wonder what they’d take?

Maybe next month I’ll pick one up.

@ Justin - :smiley:

I have the same unit, and I’ve had good results. If boards are too close to the front of the unit, they don’t hit the temperatures needed to properly melt the solder paste. That’s the only problem I’ve had with it.

It’s super easy to use and comes with pre-defined profiles for every paste I’ve ever used.

The manual is definitely hilarious. Here’s an excerpt:

That describes me very well… :frowning:

Does the oven have any type of air filter? Could it be used in an office or is it better suited for a garage?