Chinese-made reflow soldering ovens

Anyone have any experience or have colleagues who have experience using the Chinese-made reflow soldering ovens such as those being sold on the evil auction place? The one I've looked at is item number:262955348183 (Model T962).

My eyes have become the major challenge to producing the one- or two-off projects, since many of the parts that are available today are only made in SMD packages. I realize that placing them onto the board still remains a challenge, but at least with a proper oven, I won't have to hold a soldering iron steady enough to build the boards.

This model seems to be big enough to handle all the boards that I want to make, so that is a plus. Just wondering if this model produces good boards with no unsoldered areas, damaged components, etc. If it can consistently produce good boards, I'll take a chance on one of them. Reading the Chinglish instructions is scary enough , but maybe I can figure it out well enough to make it work.

Hope someone can give good advice

Dave M

Reply to
Dave M
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With solder paste, if you misalign the component slightly, when the solder reflows, it will magically float into the proper position.

If you Google for "toaster oven reflow contoller": You'll find a variety of articles on how to modify a toaster oven into a workable reflow oven. For example, here's a list of possible kits: Here's my version which I use mostly to reflow chronically defective HP Jetdirect network cards:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Jeff Liebermann

Am 08.10.2017 um 22:40 schrieb Dave M:

I have one of these:

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Bought it when the manufacturer did not yet have distributors, at a somewhat smaller price.

Vapor phase is a completely different game.

I'm still trying to recover from the "English manuals" of <

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I got some results for JFETs:

Some IF3602 pairs: <

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Some of the new ones from ON, e.a.: <

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I had no luck so far with 2N2222. Probably they oscillate happily on the tracer and need base stoppers.

cheers, Gerhard

Reply to
Gerhard Hoffmann

Original Chinese web page: Looks like it's still in production.

T962A SMD Reflow Oven Fix/Hack

Maintaining a list of T962/T962A problems, improvements and suggestions how to get good results #76

Modifying the T-962 Reflow Oven

More videos:

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Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
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Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

My vision has always been mediocre, and it's not improving with age. (The retina detach didn't help, either, but that's mostly fixed now.) I got a compact Mantis on ebay and it totally changed my attitude about SMT. I was replacing some 0603 resistors yesterday and the optics was no problem.

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The imaging is startling, and there's enough working distance for soldering or probing. Or Dremeling.

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When you can really see what you are doing, steadiness improves too.

As people have noted, a convection oven may be all you need for reflow.

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John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
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John Larkin

I have one and it works OK. I've done hundreds of boards through it over the years. The instructions are typical chopped up English but understandable and there are vidoes on the net you can watch. It's bulky. You really need about

24in x 24 in work space with good ventlation. No problem doing 2 sided boards.

You can program custom profiles and depending on the paste my need one. The profiles can be hard to setup. It does an OK job following the profile but if you hold a temp too long (say board soak) and then try and ramp up the hold temp will fall below at the end and then over shoot on the up hill side. Once you get the profile set correctly it will do a OK job.

Do not expect to fill it to the edge with a board. You will not get good soldering

in the 280x300mm range max.

If you are only doing a few boards once in a while use the hotplate method. The T962 is big and heavy and will just be collecting dust and in the way. But if you have the room it will work fine for you.

Remember you are gonna need paste. I've had good luck with these guys

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Chisolm 
Republic of Texas
Reply to
Joe Chisolm

I have a toaster oven converted to a reflow oven with a ramp and soak temperature controller. But, for one-offs, I do not use it.

To do manual assembly by reflow, first you need to apply solder paste to the board, either dot by dot or with a stencil. Then, you need to apply ALL the parts. If you just TOUCH the sufrace of the board, you will knock parts out of alignment. I can't imagine placing dozens of parts with tweezers without knocking them out of place. I do this with my pick and place machine, but I just take the board off the P&P and straight into the oven, with no fiddling around with the board. I really don't think this is a sane way to do SMT.

Using a good head-mounted magnifier (or better, a stereo zoom microscope!!) you can easily place the parts and solder. I put a dab of solder on one pad of each part location, tack the part down and then solder the other lead(s). I've been doing this for years for one-offs, it is faster than through-hole.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

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