Steve,
I wanted to thank you for the below "kudos" from both Cary and myself, as well as your trust and
hospitality. It truly was an adventure, and we all will be "on the alert" for "oversized
smurfs", being sure to hide our "rosebuds" in the event of a sighting. A rosebud is a type of
oxy-acetylene torch tip that produced enormous energy, as in torching out a solder pot with
dysfunctional heaters. Be advised it should only be handled by qualified personnel!
Have a great weekend and a safe & enjoyable holiday. Maybe you just might be able to go back
home for a few days of r&r, eh?
*******************************
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1999 22:49:07 EST
From: "Stephen R. Gregory" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Threading the needle...long but entertaining
Hi ya'll...
I've not posted in a while because I've been kinda' busy...bringing in a new
(used) wave solder machine. To put things eloquently, it's been
interesting...I think my experiences might be some interesting reading.
As some of you may remember, I had a Hollis Future SMT-1 (that was about
12-years old and had some VERY questionable care in the past) and I was
replacing it with a Trieber machine with a newer vintage of only 5-years. The
Trieber had one more topside preheater than the Hollis had (for a total of
5-preheaters, 3-bottom, 2-top), and we also decided to upgrade it with a
spray-fluxer (from Innovative Concepts http://www.innovconcepts.com/). One
other plus was that the Trieber had a 20-inch wide conveyer, and the Hollis
was a 16-inch...wider is better (GRIN).
One minor problem that I discovered in the beginning (me being so new here,
and of course only after the deal was made), was that the largest opening
into the building was just 6-feet wide, the Trieber is 7.5-feet wide. (Duhh
Steve you dipstick, what were you thinking!) What I had assumed (I know about
the saying about assuming things, so I don't need to be reminded), that there
would be a door big enough to bring equipment in like everyplace else I've
worked at...didn't even bother to check if the door width would be a problem
(but remember I'm in Oklahoma)...silly me.
Anyhoo, when I realized there was indeed a problem, I promptly shat my pants
(that is the past tense of sh*t ain't it?)...what to do? I surmised while
filling my drawers...
So I called Ed Popielarski (who I bought the Trieber from, and ya'll know him
as one of us Technetters) and told him of my brain fart (hoping that he would
say; "Oh well, no problem Steve, we'll just look for a machine for you
that'll fit through the door..." But no, he said; "There is a way Steve..."
I said; "Huh?" He said that we could take the hoods, conveyer, and solder-pot
off the machine, tilt it on it's side, get through the door, right it, and
put it back together...
When I picked my jaw back up off the floor, I said; "Huh?"
He said; "Yeah, we can do it!" He seemed so confident, I said; "Uhhh,
okay...if you say so..." So we continued on...
The machine arrived here in Tulsa the Monday before the Thanksgiving holiday,
and Ed wouldn't be able to come out until the following Monday after the
holiday, (I surely wasn't about to try and do something like this by myself),
Ed needed to come out to show me how to "thread the needle"...
So we unloaded the machine into the parking lot, covered it with a tarp to
wait on Ed, and had tornado warnings that night...talk about karma...
The machine survived all the rain and wind, and Ed showed-up on the Monday as
promised. In the meantime, I started emptying the pot on the Hollis because
part of the deal was that the Hollis was being traded-in. I started ladling
the solder out of the pot, and then the pot heaters died...friggen' GREAT! I
picked-up Ed at his hotel and greeted him with the good news that the pot
heaters died in the Hollis, and now we needed to torch the pot...but he still
wasn't too discouraged. Let me say this without getting into much detail, if
someone in blue overalls from Oklahoma says they'll torch a solder-pot for
you, decline the offer...Ed knows what I'm talking about.
Anyways, me and Ed dissassembled the machine down to parade-rest, tilted the
bloody thing on it's side (with the help of some really good fork-lift
drivers), got it into the building, put it back together and got it running.
One very interesting point was when we put the chip-nozzle into the pot. You
see, during the tornado warning night, even though I had the machine covered,
there was a bunch of water that got into the pot. We thought about it and
even put both nozzels on top of rods holding it just above the top of the pot
so that the heat from the pot while were charging it with solder would
convect up and evaporate any water that might have gotten inside the nozzel
passages, we didn't evaporate things enough apparently. We had a nice "Old
Faithful" jet of 500-degree solder squirt out of the top of the nozzel and
spray the ceiling when the molten solder contacted a pocket of water inside
the nozzel that didn't quite evaporate...for old farts like me and Ed, we
were pretty quick on our feet then...we were lucky (really) that neither one
of us were burnt. Water and molten solder don't mix...
Anyhoo, we did it! Ed knows his stuff! I would have never thought it was
possible, but it happened!
The machine runs great! Ed even showed me how to make the machine sound like
a "Harley"...hehehe. Solder pumps are air powered, and if you take the
mufflers off, set certain pump rpms (on both the chip and laminar pumps), get
the right harmonics, it sounds like a Harley idling...too cool! The spray
fluxer on it works great too...less than 10K...check it out.
But it HAS been a LONG week!
-Steve Gregory-
------------------------------
**********************************************
Ed Popielarski
QTA Machine
10 McLaren, Ste. D
Irvine, Ca. 92618
949-581-6601 Ph
949-581-2448 Fx
http://www.qta.net
Ask about our BGA Reballing system!
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