made a new tiny heatblock for reflow soldering

Well, I showed it to her and she actually said it was cute :partying_face:

Well thats a win. Take them when they come. :slight_smile:
It may have been the incense smell from the charing wood?

Charred oak does smell nice :slight_smile:

Very cute indeed :slight_smile: . Now I have to make one for myself :smiley: .

I did similar last month, here:

https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/43857

I’ve updated mine from the “wires everywhere, insulated by a oven mitt” version I posted. I’ll take some pics of my updated version tonight.

I made mine wide enough to easily hold 2 two MCPCBs, but not much bigger. That way I can easily do a quick LED swap, but I keep the AL block small to reduce heat loss through surface area. Your block is thicker than mine, which I think is good - the stock I had available on hand was only 0.5inch thick.

I use a laptop power brick supplying one of those CC/CV buck modules, with a PWM module in line for easy adjustability. I like that it has it’s own power supply, so that I don’t have to dedicate any output of my benchtop powersupply (which is under construction) for the reflow block.

I found that one element running at 9.3V is just right for mine. Using the PWM module, 1.6A (~15W) is enough to melt solder, though I usually turn mine up a bit to ~17.5 or 18W and it works a little quicker without overheating anything.

I turned it up to 30W and was able to heat a solid copper P60 pill enought to melt solder a T-Pad quad MCPCB to the pill (though it did take a while to get the pill up to temp).

I also added a set screw underneath to make really tight contact on the heater element, to imporove heat transfer even though the hole was very snug around the elemnt. I noticed after adding the set screw that I got similar temperatures with about 0.5W less power - not sure if it was really necessary, but it only took about 5min to drill and tap an M4 hole.

I sunk my AL block into the wood, so I just can slide the MCPCB off the AL and onto the wood to cool when the reflow is done. Mine just barely chars the wood, very lightly. With the AL block sunk into the wood, I don’t have to try and pick up / lift the MCPCB with still-molten solder LED on it. (I have previously dropped one as I was picking it up after reflow, and the LED went skittering across the floor - this new design prevents that potential issue.)

So far I’ve been quite pleased with it.

Ah, there’s where I stole the idea, thanks sac02 for the crosspost. So mine is the third version, next to yours and mrheosuper’s . I corrected the OP.

I’m looking forward to seeing your finished hotplate. :slight_smile:

I think that oak chars relatively fast and on top of that I found that the temperature that I measured as 240 degrees (but may be measured a bit low by the infrared thermometer) is a bit too high for a normal reflow, I will try 20 degrees less next time to see if that works better, it will also damage the wood less.

Inspiring.

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just take an extra soldering iron tip, insert it into the block, then whenever you need to heat up something just connect your iron to the embedded tip?
A 60W soldering iron would have more accurate temp regulation and heat up faster too.

Well I got the idea from mrherosuper in this thread, haha. So as far as I’m aware, he owns the patent on this idea. :slight_smile:

And mine is still beta version 2, so don’t expect too much, lol.

I run mine around 385*F (196C) and that works well for most MCPCB reflowing with the common 60/40 or 63/37 solders. Little-to-no charring on my pine block at that temp. When I turn it up above 400F for more difficult jobs I start to smell a little bit of wood char, but it’s still pretty minor.

It is handy to have your reflow block independent of your solder iron (my old reflow block btw is a converted 40W solder iron). And nothing beats these $0.76 heating elements in price !
About regulation of these things: the temperature is a pretty accurate product of the current, so I make a simple current/temperature table that gives me all the accuracy I need.

A solder iron can be a bit quicker though, heating faster, but I’m curious how the temperature regulation is affected by the chunk of added heat capacity.

Enderman, my thoughts on the “soldering iron extension” concept. A couple people in the previously linked threads had “hot plates” done with old soldering irons, so it is definitely reasonable. Reasons I chose to go with the ceramic heater elements were:

  • Size - a soldering iron sticking out the side takes up more room on the limited space of my work bench.
  • Temp control, unless you had a spare temp control soldering iron which I don’t.
  • I like to have tools that are dedicated and specialized to a task, at least when it makes functional and financial sense. They often make work easier. To me, it made sense, and IMO it has made things easier.
  • I could make this out of things I already had on hand so my only cost was a $1 heater element (although I bought 10 for $10) so the barrier to entry was not high.

So far for me it is working as I intended, and I’m pretty pleased with it. As I mentioned, I am considering to spending about $10 on a temp control unit for it in the future. But as djozz said, controling the amperage is pretty accurate by itself. I did the same as he did with a K-type thermocouple and made notes: 15W=363*F, 16W=372*F, 17W=381*F, etc. (I just made up those numbers, but you get the idea.)

Thks, but i dont own any idea since i said it to everyone
Feel free

Btw, for anyone who want to regulate the temp
This sensor is also used in 3d printer

It’s 3d temperature sensor
And the price, of coure, is very low
It can handle up to 300*C, and more
With basic coding, arduino, an oled 128*64, it will be”plug and play”, and cool

“Wow” is what I said after I watched your video djozz! First as to how fast the heat block reflowed the LED and second, how you made it look so easy.

Is djozz is good. :slight_smile:

:sheepish grimace:

… so my mini heatblock is not as pretty as djozz’s, please forgive me, it is still being beta tested, and I gave zero thought beforehand on how to layout the wood block components and run the wires lol.

But it works great. Like the poster above said, it will reflow stuff quickly but without burning it up. I’ve used it for LEDs reflowed to MCPCB, MCPCB soldered to copper pill, and reflowing all the components at once on a from-scratch driver build (WAAAAAY better than the way I did it the first time, soldering by hand each component the size of a speak of dust)

My workstation temporarily next to wife’s… So glad we have a dedicated dining room, lol.

Ill have to look this back up if I ever get brave enough to re-flow.

sweet!

Of course your’s is the proper way to do it, rough and functional! But to my defense, my workspace is one small table in the corner of the living room and my wife does not have a comparable hobby (I’m jealous of you!), so my first thought with everything is: how to make it small (even my flashlights are usually small :slight_smile: ). Two years ago I gained some ‘lebensraum’ with a rather large integrating sphere next to that table, which is still hardly tolerated. :frowning:

i gotta have one of these, lol… looks like once it is SET UP… its pretty much “automated” the process of reflowing…

You guys are so dedicated, kudos!

:beer: :beer: :beer: