Comments on: Preview: New Solder Tools From Weller

By: Nate Bezanson

Nate Bezanson — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 23:23:05 +0000

Ovens and hotplates for reflow soldering and surfacemount rework are finally filtering into the hobbyist market! Experimenters have been building their own for years, and this practice finally garnered enough attention that some of the big players have released commercial products. About damn time.

The basic idea behind preheating is to minimize mechanical stresses caused by thermal gradients across the board during soldering. You pre-warm the whole mess to just a hair below boiling, to drive out any moisture that may have wicked into the edge of the board. After letting it “soak” at that temperature for a while, you ramp up the temperature even further, to just below the solder’s melting point. Then you can easily add a touch more heat to the components you’re working on, and they’ll come free. More importantly, since everything was raised to the same temperature, it doesn’t warp as it cools.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:50:42 +0000

I was more impressed with their thermaboost soldering gun. I love a single tool that does many things. You can use it of course to solder, but also as a hot-knife, engraver or woodburner. If you have to solder something very large, hit the trigger twice and twice the heat comes out! (something like 500deg)

I was also impressed that there was a blog for nothing but weller topics. One more to subscribe to!

By: olderty

olderty — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:28:16 +0000

Solder of Fortune