DIY Hot air flow SMD (rework) tool

[Penfold]

I stumbled on to this just now. This has probably been brought up in the past by another member and if so I apologize for not giving you kudos.

I thought this was interesting and it would be a fraction of the cost of actually purchasing a reflow station. The only hold up I see is that I generally don't know what the temp and air flow capabilities would be.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/how-to-make-a-surface-mount-soldering-iron/

What do you all think?

Mike

[budude]

I built this - except I removed the bulb entirely and enlarged the tubing to fit over the opening instead. Where I fouled up was the part where you squish the tip and jam it up with braid/wire - I didn't jam it up enough and found that it would blow stuff around too much. I tried it on an ACL strobe and all it did was blow solder paste all over the board - what a mess! I guess I need to revisit this and try again with the tip crushed up some more. One thing though - I found that it did not generate enough heat to melt solder but that again might be because I was blowing too much air through and cooling it off...

[mrpackethead]

A resonable soldering iron ( expect to pay $80-90 ) with the right tip, and good flux and you'll be just fine. You need a tip that has a concave dish shape on the edge of the tip. Hakko calls these BC sytle, some others call them a hoof tip. Really with a wee bit of practice, you can easily hand solder even the finest pitched parts without any trouble at all.. I can reliably solder 100pin .4mm TQFP'S without issue.

IMHO Solder paste is great, but hot air is not the way to solder it.. Its either reflow oven ( you can make one from a toaster/grill pretty cheap ), or skillet material.. I ofetn will handplace all my RC's on Solder paste, then come back and do my TQFP's by hand.

[Braveit1]

Yup. was posted berfore. I messed up a few strobes with this and th solder paste. Had better luck with a 15w mini iron.

[griffixdc]

when im in my hacking mood i will have to try this :) neat post! i have also seen a heat iron with a mini funnel tip adapted to it used on LOW to solder the smd's only problem i saw was you couldn't do it for a long time the back pressure would over load the heating elements in the heat gun and then it would have too much pressure so it might blow or move the paste too much

[jrock64]

I saw this on the web some where, It is called the Cash Olsen method.

The idea is to do reflow on the super cheap.

The only items you need are a coffee/candle warmer, already had one.
And an embossing gun, got mine for $25 delivered, but local craft stores should have them.
And some solder past you will probably have to order.

http://doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=9775&d=1298057767

the warmer gets up to 230 degrees and starts to liquefy the solder.
Then the embosser heats the solder to melting and the parts dance into place.

Looks something like this


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEDB70bN7M8

The magic starts to happen about 45 seconds in.

JOel

[griffixdc]

I saw this on the web some where, It is called the Cash Olsen method.

The idea is to do reflow on the super cheap.

The only items you need are a coffee/candle warmer, already had one.
And an embossing gun, got mine for $25 delivered, but local craft stores should have them.
And some solder past you will probably have to order.

the warmer gets up to 230 degrees and starts to liquefy the solder.
Then the embosser heats the solder to melting and the parts dance into place.

The magic starts to happen about 45 seconds in.

JOel

lol thats some where along the lines as the method i was talking about....good find!!...only thing i noticed was he/she was using a hair blow dryer which i heard works just too much wind...as you saw the smd moved on the one when the paste melted and hardened

[jrock64]

lol thats some where along the lines as the method i was talking about....good find!!...only thing i noticed was he/she was using a hair blow dryer which i heard works just too much wind...as you saw the smd moved on the one when the paste melted and hardened

Nope that is is the done with the pictured embosser.
I have 260 of the ACL strobes that proves it works.
Oh yeah and my video.

From as little as 6in away there is really very little wind.
The trick is to blow straight down, and not from the side.
Hard to do when you are trying to fit the embosser. light and camera all into the same working space.

Joel

[griffixdc]

Nope that is is the done with the pictured embosser.
I have 260 of the ACL strobes that proves it works.
Oh yeah and my video.

From as little as 6in away there is really very little wind.
The trick is to blow straight down, and not from the side.
Hard to do when you are trying to fit the embosser. light and camera all into the same working space.

Joel

the embosser would work :) from the video the conical tip of your blower just looked very flat like a hair blow dryer, but since its your video and you make these you would know lol :) good display.