– Not a flashlight build, but related to such –
As the title says, a follow-up on my build. Received the 120 Volt controller and made the necessary adaptations. I have an album with the work and some narrations at the bottom of this thread.
Some time back I had looked over some heat plates for the occasional reflows. The combined cost (item + shipping) was a deal-breaker. Put the purchase on hold.
Last October I did some digging after I accidentally found some heater elements in my stuff. I put together some things that I thought could make for an interesting build.
Many off-hand items could be fitted together to make for a nice unit. I intuitively thought of having a small muffin fan (the computer type) to assist in keeping the device from overheating from conduction. I had some thermal isolation fibreglass board and some asbestos-filled cement board in deflecting the heat.
My aluminium plate would be pocket milled to take the 2 heaters within and after an exchange with a small DIY shop, the ‘machinist’ declined the work. His machine wasn’t up to specs and he wasn’t comfortable pocket milling to the edge (?). So the burden was on me to make do with my drill press and some muscle work.
I needed a temperature controller which I purchased on Ali. Inexpensive and had the dimensions to fit within my enclosure – 50mm x 100mm face and no more than 80mm deep. When It did arrive some 3 ½ weeks transit, I had undertaken much of the work. It was only 220 VAC. I don’t wish to connect to my baseboard thermostat (provisional 240 V source in my little shop) every time I want to reflow some PCB. The heating elements are 300 W combined; not justifiable to use such voltage on such little power requirement. Also, I want a “plug & play” cupboard tool, taken out on occasion, much like my ultra-sonic cleaning bath. After some exchanges, the merchant refunded me and I went about ordering the exact same model but of proper voltage. This was reassured by the manufacturer’s Customer Service Rep, as well as the links to the English operation manual (the 1st order was only Chinese - Google translate makes a mess of sorted technical tables!).
Now this project was to be put on hold till that controller comes in. That will be another 4 to 5 weeks. I had 99% of the work done and just took up space, all in pieces. Yesterday I decided to put the unit together and wire it for 240 – temporarily. After the assembly, tested it out. Nothing shorted nor dis-functional. A couple of bugs but I put it to rest. This morning I came to realize I hadn’t downloaded the correct manual and after some tinkering got the controller to work as I intended.
Some attributes:
1- Have the unit continue the fan cooling after switching off. This is to protect the controller from dissipating heat. I set it to 100ºC but is user-definable via the interface.
2- Set the Process Temperature to my IR thermometer. On the bench was off by some 15% too low.
3- Two side plates (retractable) to place the re-flowed PCBs.
4- Have the airflow exhaust also cool the side plates.
To not make a long and tedious post on my build, I have a slide show. Any click will link to the album with the descriptions of the work.
I tried to take as many pictures, but at times I got carried away and forgot. So some things are jumped over, and it’s best to not get too detailed.
Updated follow-up:
Much work in fitting this controller. Quite nervous throwing the switch but everything works without any hiccups. Happy with the result and glad it’s a unique item – put much work in this and in hindsight I should have opted for the $80 unit from Ali.
But then I already had most of the parts.
