Oven Toaster As Tabletop Reflow Oven

By Tanisha Berg


Activities involving electrical components are inevitable anywhere, in offices, in factories and even at home. For instance, computers are now playing very significant roles in the every day living of the people. Communication, transactions and just about everything are done electronically nowadays. Indeed, we are now living in an electronic world.

Electronics means electricity, and to create it, you should do several metal connections. The process of connecting metals together is called reflow soldering. Its goal is to make electric current pass through circuits by joining metal components together. Large ovens are used in this kind of process, however, you can convert an oven toaster into a tabletop reflow oven.

The basics is creating a mechanical bond between metals through a solder. It is similar to the solder used in jewelry making and used by plumbers doing their work. What it does is it simply joins metal parts together. The solder should have a lower melting point than the pieces it joins because it will have the danger of burning if otherwise. In addition to that, it will cool and settle down faster.

Heating the set comes next. This is where the solder melts and permanently joins the parts. This soldering process is primarily applied when attaching surface mount components to a circuit board. Reflow ovens do the job of heating, although there are alternatives to them, infrared lamps or hot air pencil for individual joining of parts.

Infrared and convection and vapor phase are the two types of reflow ovens. The first one contains many heating zones followed by cooling zones and moves through each chamber through conveyor belts in a preset time. This is make to sure that the process will be safe and will have high quality.

In the latter type, a liquid goes through a transition that will convert heat into thermal energy. The emitted energy then does the soldering. You have to make sure that the medium used here, meaning the liquid, matches the boiling point of the solder so that it will not burn and destroy the process.

The advantage of using vapor phase is that it is oxygen free compared to the convection ovens where nitrogen is constantly pumped into the chamber to achieve an oxygen free atmosphere. Since it takes a long time to do this, more nitrogen is used amounting to more cost in the process. Another is that because the boiling point is limited depending on the boiling point of the liquid used, no overheating can occur. That is why the liquid to be used should be chosen carefully.

For starters, you can make use of a secondhand, or if you want, a brand new oven toaster to serve as your reflow oven. You can make adjustments in their wiring and electrical components that will make it usable for reflow works. When you are in a very restricted space, it can come very convenient.

With a little help from experienced electronics experts, you can now convert your oven toaster and do some soldering jobs. You do not need to worry for the space because all you need is just a tabletop. Just do not try to do things your way without prior knowledge and experience because you are risking your life that way. Electronics is a very complicated field dealing with electricity and such that you can never know what will happen with just one wrong move.




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