Solder Reflow using a cheap Preheater Experiment (PART 1)
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Solder Reflow using a cheap Preheater (Experiment)
Are you using just a Heat Gun for your SMD Reflow work?
Many hobbyists use converted ovens for Reflow, but I've always wanted a hot-plate style Reflower.
If you have limited space, the size of an oven can be an issue. But I think there's other advantages too!
Being on a tight budget, I thought I'd experiment with a relatively cheap Preheater from AliExpress.
Join me as I open up the Preheater to see what makes it tick, and then give Solder Reflow a try.
If you find this video of interest, please give me a thumbs-up, and subscribe for future videos. Thanks.
You can also continue this Preheater journey here:
PART 2 - Preheater Teardown
• Solder Reflow with Pre...
PART 3 - Reflow Controller
• Solder Reflow with Pre...
Products mentioned:
UYue 946-1010 Preheating Station (100x100mm platform)
s.aliexpress.co...
UYue 946-1515 Preheating Station (150x150mm platform)
s.aliexpress.co...
946C Preheating Station (200x200mm platform)
s.aliexpress.co...
UnexpectedMaker's Reflow Master:
www.tindie.com...
Apologies for occasional focus jumps. I think I'll try manual / fixed focus next time.
First video with new Camera, new Mic, and new Lighting :)
Camera: Logitech Brio 4K (captured at 1080p 30fps)
Mic: Samson C01U Pro USB
Lighting: PT-176S 5600K LED Video Light Panel (x2)
Digicool Things on the web:
www.digicoolthi...
Digicool Things on Tindie:
www.tindie.com...
A small update from me. If you keep pressing the set button you eventually Wil enter a menu where you can adjust the heater off time and the max temperature. Might fix the issue with slow heating!
Hi Stefan. Thanks for posting your update. I don't recall trying to press the set button for a prolonged period, so this is interesting news.
I can't try it for myself just now, as I've removed the old controller board and replaced it to give me an automated reflow setup. :)
When I finally get my video recording space setup again I hope to do a follow-up and show how I've progressed with my modified pre-heater.
Over the last 9+ months I've moved house, renovated, and I'm now just working on setting up my entirely new workspace for my projects.
@@DigicoolThings Awesome! I am just awaiting a module for the thermal probe myself so I can make it work, I am tho afraid of letting it be on without a "pause" as it began smoking constantly, I might have to open it up to check if they have done something stupid. I'll take time on how long it takes to warm up from room tmepeture to 250 soon and give you an update. Did you buy a specific module that can do the reflow process or did you make a PCB for it?
Hello. I just tested it. Already 2 minutes after turning it on it was at 160 and under 5 minutes 250 so it does indeed work!
@@decee1157 You got me curious, so I re-assembled my preheater with the original controller. When I hold "Set" I get a cycle of 400 -> 0 -> 20 -> 0 -> 1 (with the 1 flickering). I assume 400 is the max setting, 20 perhaps a min setting? But unsure what the other 3 represent. If I change the 1 to 0, then the heater doesn't seem to come on at all? Anyway, your findings sound reasonable. The orginal controller gave me wildly inaccurate temp control (sometimes overheating by 20+ degrees). Using a reflow controller, the heating time is perfectly fine and steady, it's just the cool-down that is too slow (expected of course, as there's no active cooling).
Hello. I hope you figured it out. Today I finally got time to do a mock up of it and actually made a system that let me create my own temperature profiles for it!
Great video! That worked pretty well! I have a pretty big office/workshop and I was only thinking last night that the oven is taking up a lot of prime real estate!
I don't think it would take a huge amount to control the SSR with an Arduino if you wanted to make the process automated. You could even add a cheap blower fan to help with on the cool down (but running slowly so it doesnt blow anything off :) )
Yes, when I ordered I’d thought of possibly using Seon’s Reflow Master, hooked-up to the Thermocouple & SSR.
I’ll experiment with some fans to see what cool-down rate can be achieved, without obstructing access (or blowing anything off!).
Then, as you mention, there’s a huge temptation to hook-up an Arduino. Actually, all sorts of ideas are springing to mind. :)
6:17: "Whatever dialect of Asian that is"... No... just... no...🤦♂
Apologies if this came as inappropriate. I was simply expressing my own ignorance of the various languages of the world. I live in a small country with it's own dialect of English, which is the only language I know. 🥺
I guess you could just do it on the kitchen glass-top cooker. Put it in an old pan you don't use for food anymore. Turn it to medium, get that turkey oven thermometer for $2 beforehand and see what kind of temperature the plate produces. If too low, put it higher and vice versa until it's a constant 200 degrees C. Get some aluminum foil on the bottom of the pan, plop the board with pasted components in and wait. Visually inspect when the paste turns to flowing silver color and recedes back towards the components. Turn it off and remove the pan from the plate. Get some baking gloves, hold the alu foil and take the board with the foil out of the pan to cool faster. Wait a few minutes to cool and you're done. Or you could use a clothes iron. The problem with a clothes iron is it's hard to mount upside down and it's a small surface area and if it's not firmly attached it could tip over and ruin the board and whatever surface it lands on, plate first :)
Some creative thinking! Yeah that could possibly work, although it’d have even less temperature / reflow profile accuracy, so it might be a bit unfriendly towards more sensitive components. Hmm. Also, one of the goals was to have a small / compact solution that can be easily stored and used on your workbench when needed. A kitchen cooker and old pan wouldn’t quite fulfil this part of the plan, as nicely. :-)
Interesting, I wasn't aware of them. I recall seeing someone do something similar with a clothes iron years back.
Okay, that got googling. Which located not only Clothes Iron Reflow, but also “Reflowing with a Hair Straightener”! LOL
I guess anything with a decent element and some form of temperature control could be pressed into the task.
Although, the perfectly flat and square Hot Plate would be one advantage of the Preheater. :)
Thanks for the shout out! That's not a bad result for that price, but I wonder how accurate it actually is... as 183deg paste usually needs to peak at 210-220deg, but that reflowed at 190ish. I'd also be worried about pulling it off the plate while it's at reflow temp incase you knocked any parts out of position. Maybe turn it off with the board on there and let it sit for 30-40 secs before you take it off?
Accuracy is all relative. :) It won’t compete with a proper reflow solution, but I don’t see why the thermocouple wouldn’t be capable of decent accuracy. But, I can’t account for the code the built-in microcontroller is running though! It did seem to jump around a bit.
Perhaps I should have set it to 210 - 220 degrees for the final reflow?
I am however happy that it will be an easier and more consistent solution than just using a heat gun.
Next, I will see how the combination of Preheater soak, then Heat Gun for the final reflow works.
I think this might be quite nice, again, in comparison to doing a whole PCB of components with just a heat gun, from cold.
It would be interesting to hook-up your Reflow Master to the Thermocouple and SSR. Obviously wouldn't keep pace with the required heat-up / cool-down rate, but I still think the hot plate approach has some nice advantages over an oven. :)
Oh a hot plate solution is def a nice one, no doubt about it. I'm still tempted by the reflowR! I look forward to seeing your journey with yours :-)
I came close to ordering a ReflowR (several times). But my landed cost with shipping is just under NZ$300.
But I also got no response to a question I asked Lafras via Tindie. So that also killed the ordering thought!
Hence, what triggered seeking a budget option with the potential to give me a similar, albeit manual, solution.
Really informative video. I'm thinking about buying one but wondering about heating rates. Yours seems to have a single 400W element and the 20cm^2 versions have two. There is a video of a 20cm^2 taking 7-8 min to get from room temp to 200C. How fast is the 1010 and do you think any difference is important?
Thanks again.
Thanks for the feedback. I have progressed further with my pre-heater and I still use it for reflowing single prototype boards and for SMD rework.
The 1010 unit, which I have, is the 220v model and internally has 3x “220v 100W” labelled elements wired in parallel (for 300W total). Heat up time to 200/215C is in the order of just a few mins, which is fine. The only issue is that the cool down rate is quite slow (there’s no active cooling), but this isn’t an issue for my use cases, as I simply remove the PCB to a heat resistant surface when the reflow (or rework) has been completed.
I do plan to make a follow-up video, when time permits, to show the modifications I've made to automate it for my reflow / rework needs. :-)
@@DigicoolThings Thanks, I have ordered one and will keep the slow cooling rate in mind (and will take the boards off when reflowed).
you have a break away box cutter, just snap it off, bam new blade.
LOL. Well spotted! Yes, sometimes we overlook the simplest things in life.
Blade is now snapped off, and my knife gets to live and cut again! :)
I just clamp the edge of the pcb into a vise and heat it from below with a heatgun. Same effect, but faster and you can control the heat output to individual regions by just moving the heatgun around. Didn't have any discoloring so far.
I'm looking for a pre-heater to mainly just heat up GPU board for my hot-air repairs. Most of the time, I'm just de-soldering one component off a board, this might be viable or go diy route, hmm.
Yes, what you describe is the more typical use of a pre-heater. i.e. To just pre-heat the PCB up to a stable temperature, before using hot air for the final temperature boost to quickly rework the targeted component(s). I do this quite often for SMD re-work as it is much easier and less stressful to the components / PCB, than using hot air for a longer period to heat a targetted area from room temperature.
Do you think you could make a grilled cheese with this?
If you purchase one of these units don't use the cable that comes with it because it's not real copper it's aluminium cable instead
what if the board cannot touch the hotplate? will it still be able to reflow components on the oposite side of the PCB?
Lets say you have a PCB with lots of components on the bottom,,and you have to heat from the bottom to solder solderingballs of BGA ontop..would this work for that?
Hot plate based reflow, or even pre-heating, is based on direct contact of the PCB itself with the heating surface. So for this reason it's not really applicable for reworking / repairing PCB's with components mounted on both sides of the PCB. However, you could use it for PCB assembly of the first side of components, then completing the other side with a different method. eg. Hot air reflow using lower melting-point solder paste, or manual soldering (not for BGA obviously).
If you're reworking a BGA on an existing board, with components also on the underside, then I would use hot air rework station for BGA removal, and then either hot air, or reflow oven (with low temperature paste) for reseating the replacement BGA. Hope this helps.
thanks!
I just recieved mine. When hooked up to my variac I can see the heater turns on/off each second. So a modified firmware might fix the slow heating problem
This is an idea I am defiantly gonna investigate, I love the idea of using an old iron ! this setup would be perfect for me as I dont make many boards and I'm just finding my feet with SMD......Thanks
Hi, very cool. I'm valutating buying one of these as my first attempt to reflow PCBs. Do you reccomend it? I will do 0402 passive and some 0.5 mm QFN. Do you think is possible with these setup?
Thank you very much
Hi. Thanks. I've successfully been using my preheater for some time now. I'm just using regular 63/37 Sn-Pb (183c melt point) solder paste, and have found that if I first set the temp to 150c for the initial soak, and then set to 215c (for the reflow) it works great. As the temperature change rate is a little slower that desirable (for an accurate reflow profile), I find that by the time the thermostat has just reached 215c the boards are nicely reflowed and ready for removal. As cool down is also much slower than desirable for the final reflow phase, I remove the boards onto a heat resistant mat basically when the the temp hits 215c. You may need to vary the temp, depending on your paste.
I much prefer the hot plate approach over an oven, as you have perfect visibility of what's happening, and can also easily prod any larger parts if alignment is needed (where too large for surface tension to self align them). I also prefer hot plate approach for heat sensitive items like NeoPixel, other SMD LED's, and SMD connectors etc.
Do I still recommenced it? Basically comes down to your budget... If you can afford a more expensive "proper" reflow profile accurate automated hot plate system, then go for that. But if you are on a budget, and don't mind the manual steps involved, then I still think the Preheater approach is a great "budget" option. :)
I bought a 200mmx200mm plate and did the same thing out the box. Build seems good but the thermo coupler needs a few washers under it to hold it against the plate. Other than that, £45 posted, nice bit of kit.
Nice. I'm curious how many elements the 200x200mm model has? The 100x100mm has 3 elements. Is the larger unit the same, or have they bumped it up to perhaps 4 elements to cover the larger surface area?
I also must do an update video some time soon.
@@DigicoolThings it has two, larger elements. It give a nice even heat across the whole surface. It takes a little longer to heat up but heats up quickly once the plate is at 150c . The control can then be knocked up 100c in one go and once the reflow has taken place I normally knock it down by 50c for 30s then knock it down to 0c and allow it to slowly cool.
At that price where shipping is more then the item it's crazy. And building it is like 20USD free shipped in components.
Shipping for me was about half the price of the item itself. You should certainly look at the total landed cost, to make any buy / no-buy decision.
You certainly could build one yourself, with the right components, and even code-up your own controller board.
But for me, I don't have the required metal working machine shop, so it made more sense to pay the shipping for a pre-made pre-heater. :)
@@DigicoolThings Case can be ordered from china, aluminum plate also custom thickness and size. No need for machine shop.
A lot of power to connect 3 elements. Crazy !!!!
Yes, there are 3x 100W 220V Elements heating the top plate (which I show in the follow-up part 2 "tear down" video).
Hi Mr D Cool !....
Hi Andy. Thanks for the subscribe. :)
Any update on this ? How is it working out ?
Hi tablatronix. My pre-heater approach is still working great… for my requirements. :)
I use regular 63/37 Sn-Pb (183c melt point) solder paste, and I’m initially setting to 150c for soak, then reset to 215c for the reflow.
As the temp change rate is slower than ideal, I find that by the time the thermostat reaches 215c the boards are nicely reflowed and ready for removal. I then turn off and remove the boards onto a heat resistant mat for cool down. I’ve been getting consistently good results! :)
I do much prefer the hot plate approach over an oven (for all the reasons mentioned in the video). I also prefer hot plate approach for more heat sensitive items like NeoPixel, other SMD LED's, and SMD connectors etc.
I was going to pursue modifications to automate the reflow profile, but decided that if going to the effort, I’d want to focus on the a larger 150mm or 200mm square (and higher power) pre-heater. But adding the cost of buying another bigger pre-heater and redesigning to include cooling fans, I decided to park that idea for now. Especially since manually controlling the 100mm pre-heater that I bought is working just fine for me, for now. :)
Do I still recommenced it? Basically comes down to your budget... If you can afford a more expensive "proper" reflow profile automated hot plate system, then go for that. But if you are on a budget, and don't mind the manual steps involved, then I still think the pre-heater approach is a great "budget" option.
ps. I haven’t completed any videos in recent months due to life getting in the way (downsizing + multiple relocations). Phew! Hopefully I’ll be fully back into maker projects soon, in my new workspace. :)
@@DigicoolThings have you tried rocketscream.com tiny reflow control it's just $24 .. I just order a bigger hot plate to reflow many boards at a time and thinking to order this controller from rocketscrem .. can you check and advise should i buy that?
@@asifalikhan8677 I hadn't seen these before. Via your link I found: "Tiny Reflow Controller V2" for US$29.90. This looks like a nice budget reflow controller that appears to have all the connections you need. ie. single thermocouple and single element SSR connections are exactly what you need. It would be interesting to see how this works out. Here are my thoughts: The unknown is how the firmware copes with the heating profile of an open air pre-heater? ie. As we would not be using the fan connection (to allow active cooling), will the provided firmware follow a suitable reflow curve without excessive temperature over-shoot. The Controleo2 that I used has a learning feature that allows it to "auto-tune" the element control. Also, the Controleo2 has a "Bake" mode which allows setting a static temperature to maintain (allowing for dual use, so you can also continue to use as an actual pre-heater). So some work on the github provided firmware may be needed? Unfortunately when I added the Tiny Reflow Controller V2 to my cart, the only international shipping option (to my country) was Fedex at a cost equal to the controller itself (putting the total cost up to around US$60. If you do go ahead with trying one of these, it would be great to hear how successful you find it as a potential pre-heater reflow replacement controller solution. Have fun. :)
@@DigicoolThings I am thinking to give it a try because it is currently the cheapest option for auto reflow. About the cooling I am thinking to add a low speed fan towards the plate maybe it will help. I'll replace the built-in controller with this tiny controller they both have same connections
@@asifalikhan8677 Great. I look forward to hearing how you get on. It would be great to find a lower cost controller that's a good match for a pre-heater reflow solution. Worst case, if firmware changes are needed, this would be a better platform to code for than the typical inbuilt microcontroller. :)
RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF RANT IN THIS ONE.