Monday, August 11, 2014

Tabletop Reflow Oven With Oven Toasters

By Tanisha Berg


Activities involving electrical components are inevitable anywhere, in offices, in factories and even at home. For instance, computers are now playing very significant roles in the every day living of the people. Communication, transactions and just about everything are done electronically nowadays. Indeed, we are now living in an electronic world.

Electronics means electricity, and to create it, you should do several metal connections. The process of connecting metals together is called reflow soldering. Its goal is to make electric current pass through circuits by joining metal components together. Large ovens are used in this kind of process, however, you can convert an oven toaster into a tabletop reflow oven.

The basics is creating a mechanical bond between metals through a solder. It is similar to the solder used in jewelry making and used by plumbers doing their work. What it does is it simply joins metal parts together. The solder should have a lower melting point than the pieces it joins because it will have the danger of burning if otherwise. In addition to that, it will cool and settle down faster.

After joining, the entire set is subjected under a heating process that melts the solder, thus, joining the parts together permanently. Here, enters the reflow ovens which are used in joining surface mount components to circuit boards primarily. Other options to do soldering are also available such as using infrared lamps and hot air pencils to join parts individually.

Reflow ovens come in two types, the infrared and convection ovens and the vapor phase ones. The first type contains multiple heating and cooling zones and moves the set through a conveyor belt. The assembly then passes each zone in a preset time to ensure safety and quality work.

In the latter type, a liquid goes through a transition that will convert heat into thermal energy. The emitted energy then does the soldering. You have to make sure that the medium used here, meaning the liquid, matches the boiling point of the solder so that it will not burn and destroy the process.

The advantage of using vapor phase is that it is oxygen free compared to the convection ovens where nitrogen is constantly pumped into the chamber to achieve an oxygen free atmosphere. Since it takes a long time to do this, more nitrogen is used amounting to more cost in the process. Another is that because the boiling point is limited depending on the boiling point of the liquid used, no overheating can occur. That is why the liquid to be used should be chosen carefully.

For starters, you can make use of a secondhand, or if you want, a brand new oven toaster to serve as your reflow oven. You can make adjustments in their wiring and electrical components that will make it usable for reflow works. When you are in a very restricted space, it can come very convenient.

With a little help from experienced electronics experts, you can now convert your oven toaster and do some soldering jobs. You do not need to worry for the space because all you need is just a tabletop. Just do not try to do things your way without prior knowledge and experience because you are risking your life that way. Electronics is a very complicated field dealing with electricity and such that you can never know what will happen with just one wrong move.




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