My first thought was "I should melt something!". So I scrounged up my bag of old solder-contaminated crud that I've scraped off my workbench and soldering iron sponge over the last 20 years and threw that onto a tray.
toaster-reflow3.jpg (460.88 KiB) Viewed 4404 times
After switching on the oven, a large cloud of toxic smoke emanated from around the door and the ventilation holes of the oven as various "volatiles" burned off. After a few minutes I decided I'd better turn it off before the entire thing goes up in flames, and lo and behold! Solder was melted!
toaster-reflow4.jpg (552.29 KiB) Viewed 4404 times
I made a little divot in a smaller sheet of aluminium foiland poured in all the liquid that could be wrung out of the pile of scrap. Back in the oven for a bit of settling.
toaster-reflow5.jpg (240.71 KiB) Viewed 4404 times
And voilà! as the say in France, or "whalla" as they say in America - a nice, compact, and less environmentally-polluting (hah! I couldn't do it with a straight face) ingot of the old 60/40.
toaster-reflow6.jpg (237.68 KiB) Viewed 4404 times
The following weekend (this one just gone) it was time to try real soldering. I used a little too much expired solder paste to place a resistor on an old HDMI mod board and chucked it in! After guessing where to turn the dial for the perfect reflow profile, I got a result.
toaster-reflow7.jpg (146.47 KiB) Viewed 4399 times
Next it was time to try making a 135-micrometer-thick mylar stencil on my 40W hobby laser. I tried both vector-cutting and raster-engraving the film - this was a disaster and none of my attempts came close to being usable. I gave on this idea after several failed experiments. The one that looks the best here happened to be in the same direction as the laser travel while engraving, but orthogonal to it it was rubbish.
toaster-reflow8.jpg (234.78 KiB) Viewed 4399 times
Well, I took a fairly flat one, without so much melting at the edges, cleaned it up with a pointy tool and gave it a go anyway. It basically worked if we define "worked" as "some solder paste went onto the board and stayed there".
toaster-reflow9.jpg (156.53 KiB) Viewed 4399 times
Then back into the infernal machine. (Somebody had recently told me my reflow videos needed some epic background music)
Quite a lot of bridged pins because of the excess solder paste, but it's a starting point. Next time I order boards I'll be sure to order a factory-made stencil, but in the meantime I can do it manually.
toaster-reflow10.jpg (71.79 KiB) Viewed 4399 times
Interesting, I had been considering a reflow oven based on something like this, but with some micro-controller based Ben Heckery added for temp control and timer. Would be nice to at least have a pre-heater for hot air based reflow activities.
I will most likely set it on fire or cause another power outage at home....
Since I started playing around with non ST PSUs I have realised how much safer the ST design is compared to the Mac Classic analog board and the PSU from my Amstrad Alt386 portable, both of which caused power outages because of horribly exposed mains connectors.
There was a 3rd outage, but that was caused by a currant that came out of a toasted teacake which caused a short between the element and the chassis. Yes, a current through a currant. Maybe I should start a channel like Big Clive....
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:45 pm
Interesting, I had been considering a reflow oven based on something like this, but with some micro-controller based Ben Heckery added for temp control and timer. Would be nice to at least have a pre-heater for hot air based reflow activities.
Great minds think alike! I have a stainless steel thermocouple and a roll of gold-plated infra-red-reflective tape (used on car engines) on the way in the mail. When they get here I'm going to start on the microcontroller part of the project. There's quite a bit of room inside the case on the right side so hopefully it can all fit in there and not get too hot. I saw that there are some good open-source projects posted in @Icky's toaster oven thread as well. I haven't done ANY research for mine yet. I was just thinking I'd just chuck an Arduino Nano and an SPI OLED display in there.
rubber_jonnie wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:45 pm
Interesting, I had been considering a reflow oven based on something like this, but with some micro-controller based Ben Heckery added for temp control and timer. Would be nice to at least have a pre-heater for hot air based reflow activities.
Great minds think alike! I have a stainless steel thermocouple and a roll of gold-plated infra-red-reflective tape (used on car engines) on the way in the mail. When they get here I'm going to start on the microcontroller part of the project. There's quite a bit of room inside the case on the right side so hopefully it can all fit in there and not get too hot. I saw that there are some good open-source projects posted in @Icky's toaster oven thread as well. I haven't done ANY research for mine yet. I was just thinking I'd just chuck an Arduino Nano and an SPI OLED display in there.
Ben Heck did a good video on it, so worth a watch, I just haven't had the time to do it myself yet. I'll be very much interested in your project here.
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
I was looking at such ovens and pizza ovens before I thought "nope" and just bought a proper oven
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/ All my hardware guides - mods - games - STOS https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase. viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
People should find solutions to problems, not find problems with solutions.
exxos wrote: ↑Tue Aug 11, 2020 2:11 pm
I was looking at such ovens and pizza ovens before I thought "nope" and just bought a proper oven
Where's the fun in that?
I'm to old for all that fun
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/ All my hardware guides - mods - games - STOS https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/ - All my hardware mods for sale - Please help support by making a purchase. viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
People should find solutions to problems, not find problems with solutions.
