Hi Howard,

I agree with Dave but you can characterize your oven with the DataPaq. And
if you are on a tight budget you can verify your Datapaq, before you have it
calibrated. 

Put the thermal couple in a bead of solder. Then heat the solder with an air
rework station or on a hot plate. Watch for the solder to change phase. 
And verify that the thermal couple reads 183C or 361F. Put the thermal
couple in boiling water for 100C or 212F. Compare the thermal couple reading
at room temperature. If the instrument tacks well at these readings it
should work okay for your needs. 

Next, mount thermal couples across a large wide board and measure the top
air and bottom air temps through the oven. 

Then, mount thermal couples under a standard part (those QFPs for example)
and place them across large wide board an measure the top and bottom side
variation. 

Finally, mount the loaded couples in a diagonal so you can monitor the
response as the zones are loaded. Do the parts at the front get hotter than
the parts at the back, compared to the results from the previous test.

This should give you confidence or reason to reject the oven for your
applications.  

Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: TechNet [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Watson, Howard A
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [TN] IR Reflow Oven capability

Hello all,

Wow, after an 8 year hiatus from the electronics industry, and the Technet,
I am surprised to see so many familiar names still active on the Technet.  I
see this as a testament to your wisdom and staying power, something I didn't
have!

In my new job, in a very small shop of R&D quantity, I see that we have a
very small IR reflow oven that is seldom used (most of our boards are
entirely hand soldered or contracted out).  The oven is a ~15 year old bench
top oven with a heating tunnel that is 3 feet long - 4 heat zones.  The
reports I hear are of  "hit-or-miss" quality output, which might not
necessarily be the oven and could be the process. Our boards can be complex,
multi-layer and with some large QFPs, big ground planes, etc.  My question
is: does anyone have direct experience to share regarding these small bench
top IR reflow ovens, and did/do you have a positive experience?  For the
record, the oven is a DIMA SMT Systems SMRO-0252.  We use 63/37 solder, RMA
flux.  We do profile the boards, but since the datapaq has not been
calibrated in 10+ years, I look at these profiles with some suspicion.  Your
feedback will help my decision process to keep the oven and work on the
process, or work on getting a new oven.  As always, I appreciate your
insight!

Howard Watson



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