sky_123
Advanced Member level 4
Hi,
In the UK there doesn't tend to be many flat-bed toasters (they are all pop-up), and rather than try to hack a toaster,
I noticed that these types of heating elements are available.
In different powers too (this one is 325W).
Having never done this, for heating up small boards, does anyone know if (say) 200W or 325W would be sufficient? The heaters are
120x60mm in size (but larger ones are also available), which sound perfect for heating up just the small area of PCBs that contains the difficult
SMT components such as QFN packages, or other devices with pads on the underside. Most of my PCBs have large-ish SMD packages which
are easy to hand-solder, but it is restrictive sometimes being unable to use some smaller components easily.
The plan is to maybe acquire one of these heaters, and maybe one of these heat insulator blocks for placing the PCB on top, and have a simple metal frame (made from L-section and nuts and bolts) to position the heater over the block and PCB.
Maybe I could get some practice in adjusting the temperature by a raising/lowering mechanism for the heater while monitoring a thermocouple
connected to a multimeter,or controllers **broken link removed** seem to be very low cost.
Does this seem like a bad or good idea? Thanks!
In the UK there doesn't tend to be many flat-bed toasters (they are all pop-up), and rather than try to hack a toaster,
I noticed that these types of heating elements are available.
In different powers too (this one is 325W).
Having never done this, for heating up small boards, does anyone know if (say) 200W or 325W would be sufficient? The heaters are
120x60mm in size (but larger ones are also available), which sound perfect for heating up just the small area of PCBs that contains the difficult
SMT components such as QFN packages, or other devices with pads on the underside. Most of my PCBs have large-ish SMD packages which
are easy to hand-solder, but it is restrictive sometimes being unable to use some smaller components easily.
The plan is to maybe acquire one of these heaters, and maybe one of these heat insulator blocks for placing the PCB on top, and have a simple metal frame (made from L-section and nuts and bolts) to position the heater over the block and PCB.
Maybe I could get some practice in adjusting the temperature by a raising/lowering mechanism for the heater while monitoring a thermocouple
connected to a multimeter,or controllers **broken link removed** seem to be very low cost.
Does this seem like a bad or good idea? Thanks!