Peter R
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December 28, 2017, 11:41:58 PM

new reflow oven

hey lightfoot

what do you recommend in a hot air station?
Strangely enough my Aoyue 952 has done very well. Solid little thing.

I think I'm going to get a ez-bake oven to try to do better chip reflows. I can do it by hand, but there is always the risk I overheat the chip. Reflow oven would automate that, then I just need to make sure the tacky flux has the component perfectly aligned (you can bump a chip slightly with air to get it to perfectly center.

I've got an Aoyue 952 as well as a Weller WR3 rework station.  The nice thing about the hot air from the Weller is that you can toggle it on/off at the hand tool.  However, this is somewhat less useful than I initially expected.  The other great thing about the WR3 is the vacuum de-soldering tool.  If you've only ever used the manual "solder suckers," then a pro de-soldering tool will be a real treat!