Oven soldering

[Mohrenberg]

Okay so i was reading all the tutorials for soldering with toaster ovens....i really wanted to try it so i decided to sacrifice a driver for an experiment.

I don't have a toaster oven, nor do i have this "solder paste"

So i first started by melting a bunch of silverbearing solder into a bar.

I then started to work on it with a file, untill i had a nice pile of solder dust...
Then i mixed that dust with solder flux untill i was satisfied with it's texture...

I then warmed my REGULAR (electric with the heating coils) oven to 200 degrees f.

i got a regular cookie sheet and put it in the oven.
On top of the cookie sheet a put another cookie sheet, this one is made up of two layer of metal (suppose to keep from burning the bottom of your cookies)

On top that that two-layer cookie sheet is where i placed the driver.
I then covered the driver with a glass lid from a baking dish to shield it from the direct heat of the heating coil.

I let it sit at 200 degrees for about 4 minutes.
I then raised the temperature to 325 degrees, once the oven had reached that temperature i raised it to 450.

the soldering paste is a really dark grey.
about 30 seconds after the oven reached 450 degrees the solder paste began to shine (i was using a flashlight) and i knew the solder had melted. I then turned off the oven and took the driver out.

it's cooling right now and i will test it in a few seconds to see if the driver functions.

 

[Mohrenberg]

Hm, the driver appears to be working perfectly fine.....and i must say the soldering looks rather professional.....

anyone know how safe this is compared to the toaster oven method?

i just set the driver to 120mA.....alls good so far.

 

[lasersbee]

Good Luck with your Driver soldering tests... really curious on how the homemade
Solder Paste worked out...

[EDIT]
The only thing that is important (concerning heat) is that you respect the heat up
and cool down cycle temperatures and the timing outlines to not stress the electronic
parts.. or PCB..

With proper solder past in a syringe it will be a lot easier to apply it...


Jerry

 

[rpaloalto]

LOL
what did your fiancée have to say about all this.
Let me guess your home alone

 

[Mohrenberg]

yes she is gone right now.

 

[o0ICE0o]

Can we have a pic of how it turned out?

 

[jeffd]

Well if it works it will definitely save you time and effort for all those drivers!

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Pretty cool stuff! I know that Sparkfun has a tutorial on how to make one, and they also sell the circuitry to control the temperature. Maybe you can make your own automated one in the same fashion.

 

[Mohrenberg]

it works, but i'd need time to get a smooth routine going....and i don't have time to mess around so for now it will be faster to finish them up by hand....i've only got 3 components left for about 30 of them and they're done....
Plus i tried a batch of 5 and realized it's a bad idea to try to move them before they're cool....so i had to reset their voltage regulators after they slid out of place.

but all in all i did about 15 of them this way and it worked great every time, except for my mishap of moving that one batch.

 

[OutlawZ]

Good job.