Infrared soldering station with computer control. Homemade infrared soldering station
It is most likely not worth explaining how much a soldering station is necessary for the operation and repair of modern electronic equipment, just wasting time. Unfortunately, even the most budget options for such equipment cost a lot of money, from 10 thousand rubles and more, so to work at home you have to look for options for making a soldering station with your own hands. This is not an easy task, requiring patience in debugging and setting up the control component of the soldering station.
Options for building a soldering station
Among any useful and not very set of information available on the network, you can find a lot of home-made circuits and devices, up to options for making home-made thermocouples and hair dryers. In practice, for soldering and warming up the electronic components of motherboards and video cards of computers, control stations and other microprocessor equipment, two types of installation are most often used:
- A design that works on the principle of heat transfer by hot air. Assembling such a hot-air soldering station with your own hands is quite simple, but under one condition, most of the components must be bought ready-made, and not attempted to be made in a handicraft way;
- The non-contact installation works on the principle of a heat emitter. Do-it-yourself infrared soldering station is assembled on the basis of powerful halogen lamps and a system of reflectors. To control the heating, the software capabilities of the laptop are used.
The coolest soldering station, the performance of which is confirmed in practice, is recognized as an installation made of a reflective mirror and a powerful 500W halogen lamp.
For your information! With the correct setting of such a soldering station, it was possible to solder the contacts with hard silver solder.
But for soldering or heating, such a device will be deadly, because the main criterion when choosing a soldering station option should be the controllability of surface heating with an accuracy of 1 ° C.
Building a low power air soldering station
The design of the soldering station consists of four main elements:
- Heating process control boards;
- Corps;
- Power supply;
- Hairdryer and soldering iron.
The power supply and case are selected in accordance with the available resources. The rest of the nodes will have to be bought or made by hand.
Main working tool of air soldering station
The main working body of the soldering station is a hair dryer with an electric spiral and a cooler that blows hot air onto the surface of the solder or microchip. Its device is simple, and if desired, you can wind a nichrome spiral from an ordinary low-voltage soldering iron onto a ceramic tube.
The heating element is insulated with several layers of fiberglass. Nichrome will not heat up to the state of hot metal, but it is necessary to insulate the surface at least so that the metal surface does not oxidize. At the outlet of the heating device, it is necessary to install a ceramic ring or nozzle with a diameter of 8-10 mm. Heat-resistant chips that fix the heating coils in old irons are best suited. The heater power for the soldering station will be required in the range of 400-500W, no less.
To organize pressurization, you can use a cooler from a computer, or take as a basis a case with an engine and a fan from a camping hair dryer. But in this case, you will have to develop your own version of controlling the engine speed and air flow pressure.
Advice! There are many manual control schemes in which it is proposed to organize the air supply to the heating element using an external compressor.
From practice, we can say that the air supply control of the soldering station should only be automatic, otherwise turning the pressure bypass valve on and off will make the soldering process real flour, and not work.
In addition, a thermocouple must be installed in the design of the hair dryer, with the help of which, in fact, the air temperature is regulated.
The connection diagram of the hair dryer can be done as shown in the figure below.
The quality of the soldering depends on how convenient and safe the design of the hair dryer is to work, so if you don’t want to fool around with homemade products, you can buy a regular hair dryer from the Luckey desktop soldering station, model 702, and simply adapt it to the control board.
Soldering Station Control System
From the list above, the most difficult node for a do-it-yourself soldering station is the control board. You can buy it ready-made, but if you have experience in building such structures, you can easily assemble the circuit with your own hands, a set of parts can be ordered online.
Of all the existing options available online, the circuit based on the ATMEGA 328p controller is recognized as the most reliable and easy to use. The board is assembled on the basis of the diagram below.
The assembly is carried out on a fiberglass board, and with normal assembly quality, the soldering station control system starts on the first try. When assembling the board, you will need to be extremely careful when soldering the elements, especially the power circuit of the chip, making a ground and trying not to overdo it with heating the legs. But, first of all, it will be necessary for the programmer to hammer in the program control code. As a soldering station power supply, a 24V-6A impulse switch with built-in overload protection is used.
The control circuit of the soldering station uses a pair of powerful IRFZ44N mosfets, measures must be taken to protect against overheating and burnout. If the heater of the hair dryer turned out to be too powerful, it is quite possible that the power supply blocking will work.
It is desirable to bring the simistor and optoelectronic pair to a separate board, and be sure to install a cooling radiator. For an optocoupler, it is recommended to use relatively low-power control LEDs with a maximum current consumption of up to 20 milliamps.
The design of the soldering station uses a five-pin soldering iron with a power of 50 watts. The developers recommend using Arrial 936, but you can install any similar tool with a pre-installed thermocouple.
Assembly and adjustment of the station
All elements are mounted in a closed die case from an old power supply, a radiator and a switch are placed on the back wall, and a temperature indicator is on the front.
The soldering station is controlled by three variable resistances per 10 kOhm. The first two regulate the temperature of the soldering iron and hair dryer, the third sets the speed of the hot air fan.
The adjustment process only concerns adjustment of the heating temperature of the soldering iron and hot air gun on the board of the soldering station. To do this, we connect the power to the soldering iron and use a thermocouple with a tester to measure the actual temperature of the heating tip. Next, using a trimming resistor, we display the reading on the digital indicator of the station in accordance with the data of the tester. In a similar way, we measure the temperature of the air flow of the hair dryer and adjust the readings on the indicator with a trimmer. If you turn up the fan speed of the hair dryer, then the place of soldering can be easily heated up to 450 ° C.
Making an infrared soldering iron
Soldering stations operating on infrared radiation, with rare exceptions, are used to warm up a soldered processor, bridge or processor on a video card. As you know, processors do not tolerate overheating very well, and often, under heavy load and poor heat dissipation, the low-temperature solder of the contacts from the pad is soldered.
One of the barbaric ways to restore contact is to warm up the "body" of the processor with dosed thermal radiation. This can be done with an ordinary hair dryer or even an iron, but after such procedures a positive effect is achieved in one of three cases. Therefore, homemade specialists prefer to build infrared heating soldering stations.
Manufacture of housing and heating elements
Structurally, the soldering station consists of four main elements:
- Lower heating block;
- Upper heating block;
- Stand and heater control unit.
Between the upper and lower cases, the computer motherboard is placed so that the infrared stream from the upper heating system is directed mainly to the target - the processor case. The rest of the board is covered from heat with an aluminum plate or foil with a cut-out window for the processor.
The lower body of the soldering station is used to create a thermal shield, in other words, to additionally heat the board in order to reduce heat loss due to air convection.
Important! The whole trick of the soldering station is to make the heating not only efficient, but also controllable, that is, the case cannot be allowed to overheat, so the design uses a thermocouple and a halogen control interface.
As heaters, you can use an ordinary nichrome spiral laid inside quartz tubes or R7S J254 halogens.
For the manufacture of the body of the lower block, you can use any steel box that is suitable in size, on which lamp connectors are installed. As a result, after assembling and connecting the wiring, the design of the soldering station is obtained, as in the photo.
The upper heating block is made in a similar way.
The whole device and control is mounted on a tripod from an old Soviet photographic enlarger, which has a height adjustment of the upper unit. It remains to assemble the control system of the soldering installation.
Thermocouples and control
In order to prevent overheating, the soldering station uses two thermocouples - for the processor case and the rest of the motherboard. To control the soldering station, the Arduino MAX6635 interface board is used, which is connected to the serial port of a home laptop or PC, for which you have to look for the appropriate software content or make it yourself.
The soldering station is controlled as follows. The computer receives information about the temperature through the interface and a thermocouple and changes the heat flux power with the help of on-off pulses of the station's halogens. As it overheats, the duration of the burning period of the lamp will be reduced, and when it cools down, on the contrary, it will be increased.
When assembled, the soldering station looks like in the photo. The construction cost was just over $80.
Conclusion
There are at least four more options for manufacturing a soldering iron, including one of them of a battery type. Which one is the most convenient to operate can only be established in a practical way, after the construction of a full-size soldering iron. The two soldering system diagrams presented in the article are the simplest and most affordable to manufacture with a very modest budget of $ 150.
For a long time I have been thinking about how to do a soldering station with my own hands and repair my old video cards, set-top boxes and laptops on it. An old halogen heating pad can be used for heating, the leg of an old table lamp can be used to hold and move the top heater, the boards will rest on aluminum handrails, the shower coil will hold thermocouples, and the Arduino board will monitor the temperature.
First, let's understand what a soldering station is. Modern chips on integrated circuits (CPU, GPU, etc.) do not have legs, but they have an array of balls (BGA, Ball grid array). In order to solder / desolder such a chip, you need to have a device that heats the entire IC to a temperature of 220 degrees and does not melt the board, and also does not subject the IC to thermal shock. That is why we need a temperature controller. Such devices cost in the range of $400-1200. This project should cost about $130. You can read about BGA and soldering stations on Wikipedia, and we will start working!
Materials:
- Four-lamp halogen heater ~1800w (as bottom heater)
- 450w ceramic IR (top heater)
- Aluminum slats for curtains
- Spiral shower cable
- Strong thick wire
- Table lamp leg
- Arduino ATmega2560 board
- 2 SSR 25-DA2x Adafruit MAX31855K boards (or make your own like I did)
- 2 K-type thermocouples
- DC power supply 220 to 5v, 0.5A
- Letter Module LCD 2004
- 5v buzzer
Step 1: Bottom Heater: Reflector, Lamps, Housing
Show 3 more images
Find the halogen heater, open it and take out the reflector and 4 bulbs. Be careful not to break the lamps. Here you can use your imagination and create your own case that will hold the lamps and the reflector. For example, you can take an old PC case and put lamps, a reflector, and wires inside it. I used metal sheets 1 mm thick and made cases for the lower and upper heaters, as well as a case for the Arduino controller. As I said before, you can be creative and come up with something of your own for the case.
The heater I used was 1800W (4 450w lamps in parallel). Use the wires from the heater and connect the lamps in parallel. You can embed an AC plug like I did, or connect a cable directly from the bottom heater to the controller.
Step 2: Bottom Heater: Board Fixing System
Show 4 more images
After creating the lower heater housing, measure the greater length of its window and cut two pieces of aluminum rail of the same length. You will also need to cut 6 more pieces, each half the size of the smaller side of the heater window. Drill holes in the two ends of the large pieces of slats, as well as one end of each of the 6 small slats, and in the long section of the window. Before you screw the parts to the body, you need to create a nut-mounting mechanism, like the one I made in the photos. This is necessary so that the smaller slats can slide over the larger slats.
Once you've threaded the nuts into the rails and screwed everything together, use a screwdriver to move and secure the screws so that the mounting system fits the size and shape of your board.
Step 3: Bottom Heater: Thermocouple Holders
To make thermocouple holders, measure the diagonal of the bottom heater window and cut two pieces of spiral shower cable of the same length. Unwind the stiff wire and cut two pieces, each 6cm longer than the shower coiled cable. Pass the hard wire and thermocouple through the coiled cable and bend both ends of the wire as I did in the pictures. Leave one end longer than the other in order to screw it in with one of the rack screws.
Step 4: Top Heater: Ceramic Plate
To make the top heater, I used a 450W ceramic infrared heater. You can find these on Aliexpress. The trick is to create a good case for the heater with the right air flow. Next, proceed to the heater holder.
Step 5: Top Heater: Holder
Find an old table lamp on a leg and take it apart. In order to properly cut the lamp, you need to accurately calculate everything, since the upper infrared heater must reach all corners of the lower heater. So, first attach the top heater body, cut along the x-axis, make the correct calculations, and finally cut along the z-axis.
Step 6: Arduino PID Controller
Show 3 more images
Find the right materials and create a strong and secure case for your Arduino and other accessories.
You can simply cut and attach the wires connecting the controller (top / bottom power, power controller, thermocouples) using a soldering iron or get connectors and do everything neatly. I didn't know exactly how much heat the SSR would radiate, so I added a fan to the case. Whether you install a fan or not, you definitely need to apply thermal paste to the SSR. The code is simple and understands how to connect the buttons, SSR, screen and thermocouples, so connecting everything together will be easy. How to control the device: There is no auto-tuning for P, I and D values, so these values will need to be entered manually depending on your settings. There are 4 profiles, in each of them you can set the number of steps, Ramp (C / s), dwel (wait time between steps), lower heater threshold, target temperature for each step and P, I, D values for the upper and lower heaters . If, for example, you set 3 steps, 80, 180 and 230 degrees with the threshold of the lower heater 180, then your board will be warmed up from below only to 180 degrees, then the temperature from below will be kept at 180 degrees, and the upper heater will warm up to 230 degrees. The code still needs a lot of improvements, but from it you can understand how everything should work. This guide is not detailed, as it contains a lot of homemade elements, and each build will be different from the others. I hope you will be inspired by this instruction and make your own IR soldering station.
About two years ago I posted an article. This article aroused the interest of many radio amateurs. But unfortunately, after repeating the IR soldering station, there were some remarks in terms of the operation of the station, which I tried to eliminate in this version of the station:
- AD8495 analog thermocouple amplifiers with built-in cold junction compensation are used, as a result of which the accuracy of temperature readings is increased
- the problem with the failure of the transistors of the lower heater is solved with the help of a triac power controller
- Improved firmware (which is compatible with the previous version of the station). After starting, the thermal profile starts to run from the temperature to which the board is preheated, which saves a lot of time. Special thanks for the correction and adaptation of the firmware for Chinese displays.
- added vacuum tweezers
- The body of the soldering station has been completely redesigned. The design of the station turned out to be very nice, more stable and reliable, it takes up less space on the desktop. Everything you need is combined in one case - the lower heater, the upper heater, the vacuum tweezers and the controller itself.
Design Description
The controller is two-channel. A thermocouple or a PT100 platinum thermistor can be connected to the first channel. Only a thermocouple is connected to the second channel. 2 channels have automatic and manual operation. The automatic mode of operation maintains a temperature of 10-255 degrees through feedback from thermocouples or a platinum thermistor (in the first channel). In manual mode, the power in each channel can be adjusted from 0-99%. The controller memory contains 14 thermal profiles for BGA soldering. 7 for lead-containing solder and 7 for lead-free solder. Thermal profiles are listed below.
For lead-free solder, the maximum thermal profile temperature: - 8 thermal profile - 225C about, 9 - 230C about, 10 - 235C about, 11 - 240C about, 12 - 245C about, 13 - 250C about, 14 - 255C about
If the upper heater does not have time to warm up according to the thermal profile, then the controller pauses and waits until the desired temperature is reached. This is done in order to adapt the controller for weak heaters that warm up for a long time and do not keep up with the thermal profile.
The controller starts to perform a thermal profile from the temperature to which the board is preheated. This is very convenient and allows you to quickly restart the thermal profile in case, for example, if the temperature was insufficient to remove the chip, then you can select a thermal profile with a higher temperature and immediately remove the chip on the second attempt.
The circuit uses a combo power unit, consisting of a transistor switch for the upper heater, and a triac switch for the lower heater. Although, for example, you can use 2 transistor or 2 triac switches.
I used 2 off-the-shelf AD8495 modules purchased from Aliexpress. The mods need some tweaking though. See photo below.
We do not pay attention to the fact that the module in the second photo is rotated 90 degrees. I had to deploy it, since my modules rested on the power unit. Connectors for thermocouples are used factory.
For those who do not plan to use a platinum thermistor in the future, then the part of the circuit highlighted by the red dotted line can not be assembled.
Printed circuit boards of the power unit and controller.
To cool the power switches, I used a heatsink from a video card with active cooling.
Further on the photo you will see the assembly stage of the soldering station, as a designer. All materials were purchased from a large hardware store. The front and rear panels are made of fiberglass reinforced with aluminum corners. Basalt cardboard serves as a heat-insulating material. The lower heating consists of 9 halogen lamps (1500W 220-240V R7S 254mm) combined in 3 groups of 3 lamps connected in series.
The wire for 220V is silicone, high-temperature.
A good vacuum pump can be purchased on Aliexpress for 400-500 rubles. Reference point for the search in the photo below.
Initially, I planned to use the soldering station and IR glass over the bottom heater, which gave good advantages:
- beautiful appearance
- a fee (on racks you can lay directly on the glass), like at Termopro stations
But alas, the disadvantages turned out to be more significant:
- very long heating (cooling) of the board
- the case of the soldering station is very hot, for example, without glass, the case is barely warm during operation. So the glass had to be abandoned.
With the tripod unscrewed, the glass can be easily removed or inserted into the station. Also, instead of glass, you can insert, for example, a grid.
Appearance of the assembled station.
Accessories, racks, aluminum channel for racks, vacuum tweezer handle, silicone tube for tweezers, thermocouple.
Necessary "ingredients" for making a vacuum tweezer handle. Used mixer from epoxy glue Moment in a double syringe. An aluminum tube (in which a hole must be drilled) and a connector of the appropriate diameter for a silicone tube. Everything is glued into the aluminum tube with epoxy glue.
Controller setup
Resistor R32 is necessary to set the voltage of 5.12V at the output of U4. Resistor R28 adjust the contrast of the display. If you do not plan to use a platinum thermistor, then the station setup is finished.
A description of the calibration of a channel with a platinum thermistor is described in the article of the first version of the station.
Recommendations
The top heater must be installed at a height of 5-6 cm from the board surface. If at the time of the thermal profile execution the temperature overshoots from the set value by more than 3 degrees, we reduce the power of the upper heater (turn on the station with the encoder pressed and set the maximum power of the upper heater). A run-out of several degrees at the end of the thermal profile (after turning off the upper heater) is not terrible. This affects the inertia of ceramics. Therefore, I choose the desired thermal profile 5 degrees less than I need. Before removing the chip with a probe, you need to make sure (by gently pressing on each corner of the chip) that the balls under the chip have floated. During installation, we use only high-quality flux, otherwise the wrong choice of flux can ruin everything. Also when mounting the BGA chip Necessarily you need to cover the crystal aluminum foil rectangle with a side size equal to about ½ of the BGA side, in order to reduce the temperature in the center, which is always higher than the temperature near the thermocouple (see the photo of the heat spots of the ELSTEIN IR heaters in the article of the first version of the station).
In general, watch the video below.
Below you can download an archive with a printed circuit board in LAY format, source code, firmware.
List of radio elements
| Designation | Type | Denomination | Quantity | Note | Shop | My notepad |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | encoder | 1 | To notepad | |||
| U1, U2 | Operational amplifier | AD8495 | 2 | To notepad | ||
| U3 | Operational amplifier | LM358 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| U4 | Linear Regulator | LM7805 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| U5 | MK PIC 8-bit | PIC16F876A | 1 | To notepad | ||
| U6 | MK PIC 8-bit | PIC12F683 | 1 | Possible replacement with PIC12F675, but not recommended | To notepad | |
| U7, U8 | optocoupler | PC817 | 2 | To notepad | ||
| U9 | optocoupler | MOC3052M | 1 | To notepad | ||
| LCD1 | LCD display | VC20x4C-GIY-C1 | 1 | 20x4 based on KS0066 (HD44780) | To notepad | |
| Q1 | MOSFET transistor | TK20A60U | 1 | To notepad | ||
| Z1 | Quartz | 16 MHz | 1 | To notepad | ||
| VD1 | rectifier diode | LL4148 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| VD2 | Diode bridge | KBU1010 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| VD3 | zener diode | 24V | 1 | To notepad | ||
| VD4 | Diode bridge | DB107 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| T1 | Triac | BTA41-600B | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R9 | Platinum thermistor | PT100 | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R2, R3, R6, R7, R26, R27 | Resistor | 10 kOhm | 6 | To notepad | ||
| R1, R5 | Resistor | 1 MΩ | 2 | To notepad | ||
| R4, R8 | Resistor | 100 kOhm | 2 | To notepad | ||
| R10, R11 | Resistor | 4.7 kOhm | 2 | 1% tolerance or better | To notepad | |
| R12 | Resistor | 51 ohm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R13, R32 | Trimmer resistor | 100 ohm | 2 | multi-turn | To notepad | |
| R14, R15, R16, R17 | Resistor | 220 kOhm | 5 | 1% tolerance or better | To notepad | |
| R18 | Resistor | 1.5 kOhm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R19 | Trimmer resistor | 100 kOhm | 1 | multi-turn | To notepad | |
| R20 | Resistor | 100 ohm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R21 | Resistor | 20 kOhm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R22 | Resistor | 510 ohm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R23, R24 | Resistor | 47 kOhm | 2 | Power 1W | To notepad | |
| R25 | Resistor | 5.1 kOhm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R28 | Trimmer resistor | 10 kOhm | 1 | multi-turn | To notepad | |
| R29 | Resistor | 16 ohm | 1 | Power 2W | To notepad | |
| R30, R31 | Resistor | 2.7 kOhm | 2 | To notepad | ||
| R33 | Resistor | 2.2 kOhm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R34 | Resistor | 100 kOhm | 1 | Power 1W (you may have to choose the value when setting the zero detector) | To notepad | |
| R35 | Resistor | 47 kOhm | 1 | you may have to choose the value when setting the zero detector | To notepad | |
| R36 | Resistor | 470 ohm | 1 | To notepad | ||
| R37 | Resistor | 360 ohm | 1 | Power 1W | To notepad | |
| R38 | Resistor | 330 ohm | 1 | Power 1W | To notepad | |
| R39 | Resistor |
As heating elements of infrared soldering stations ceramic or quartz infrared emitters can be used. The use of infrared heaters provides a high rate of local heating and the ability to effectively control the temperature profile of group soldering.
Soldering stations are widely used among soldering equipment, in which heating is carried out by a focused beam of infrared radiation. Such soldering stations consist of two heating parts, which provide local heating of the board and, accordingly, high quality and heating speed.
The infrared emitter, which is located in the upper part, is often small in size. Its task is to carry out at the right time a quick local heating of a certain part of the board to the melting temperature of the solder.
Infrared radiators, which are placed at the bottom, heat the board to a relatively low temperature in preparation for the soldering process. The size and number of emitters depends on the size of the board.
Ceramic infrared emitters
Ceramic infrared emitters durable and quite durable. The speed of reaching the temperature regime is about 10 minutes. For soldering stations, flat or hollow emitters are often used (hollow ones have a higher temperature on the surface of the emitter and quickly reach the temperature regime, but they are more expensive). To ensure a more efficient beam distribution, it is recommended to additionally use reflectors for IR emitters. Emitters are produced only in standard sizes. Ceramic infrared emitters are best used for long-term soldering station operation.
Quartz infrared emitters
Quartz infrared emitters characterized by a quick exit to the temperature regime (about 30 seconds), but more fragile. For the manufacture of an infrared soldering station, you can choose how
Radio amateurs sooner or later have to deal with the soldering of elements through an array of balls. BGA soldering method is used everywhere in mass production of various equipment. For installation, an infrared soldering iron is used, which connects the parts in a non-contact way. Ready-made modifications are expensive, and cheaper counterparts do not have sufficient functionality, so it is possible to make a soldering iron at home.
Description of the IR soldering process
The principle of operation of an infrared soldering station is the impact of strong waves of 2-7 microns on the element. A device for soldering with homemade IR soldering stations, both homemade and purchased, consists of several elements:
- Bottom heater.
- Upper heater responsible for the main effect on materials.
- The design of the board holder, placed on the table.
- Temperature controller consisting of a programmable element and a thermocouple.
The wavelength directly depends on the temperature indicators of the energy source. Materials in various forms are soldered with a handmade IR station, there are basic parameters for energy transfer, opacity, reflection, translucency and transparency. Before making an IR soldering station with your own hands, you need to understand that there are some disadvantages of these systems:
- Different degrees of energy absorption by the components lead to uneven heating.
- Each board, due to its different characteristics, requires the selection of temperatures, otherwise, the components overheat and fail.
- The presence of a "dead zone" where infrared energy does not reach the desired object.
- A prerequisite for protecting the surfaces of other elements from the evaporation of fluxes.
Heating occurs due to the transfer of heat to the circuit board. The thermal effect of the infrared station occurs on top of the part, the temperature is not enough, so the design involves heating the lower part. The lower part consists of a heating table, the soldering process can be carried out by means of quiet infrared radiation, or by air flow.
Professional equipment is quite expensive, cheaper analogues do not have sufficient functionality. To save money, perform the necessary operations with BGA controllers, it is possible to make an infrared soldering station with your own hands. Assembly is possible from commercially available and improvised materials. The design is a thermotable made from an old lamp, equipped with halogen-type lamps. The controller and the upper heater are either purchased from the market or assembled from old spare parts.
The thermostatic table will require the presence of reflectors, halogen lamps, placed in a profile or sheet metal case. When making an infrared soldering station with your own hands, you should adhere to the drawings that you can develop on your own or borrow from other performers. The case must be provided with a place for a thermocouple, which transmits information to the controller to prevent sudden temperature changes, excessive heating of the material.
Assembling an IR soldering station involves home-made structures in the form of fasteners from a tripod. The temperature of the heating unit is controlled by a second thermocouple. Installed in parallel with the heater, the tripod is fixed on the panel in such a way that the IR element can be moved over the surface of the heating table. The location of the board is made above the halogen lamps by 2-3 cm, in the case of the thermotable. Fastening is carried out with brackets, for the manufacture it is possible to use an unnecessary aluminum profile.
Making a blowtorch with your own hands will first require a case. To cool the system, the installation of one powerful or several coolers is required, it is desirable to choose a material from galvanized steel. After complete assembly, the system is adjusted by starting the circuit, debugging the device.
The bottom heater can be made in several ways, but a much better option is to use halogen lamps. A rational solution is to install lamps with a total power of 1 kW or more with your own hands. On the sides of the structure, thresholds are installed that will fix the board. Installation of materials for soldering is carried out on the channel, for smaller parts, substrates or clothespins are used.
It is known that the upper heater of suitable quality cannot be made by hand. To achieve the best result in the process of IR soldering, it is necessary to use ceramic heating elements. For And infrared soldering station, made by hand, the best option is to use an ELSTEIN heater. The manufacturer shows the best results, the emission spectrum is ideal for replacing BGA boards and other parts. It is not recommended to save on the purchase of an upper heater - a heater when assembling a soldering station with your own hands, because. when working with a low-quality tool, damage to the board or the assembled structure is possible.
The design for the top heating is possible from a self-made bed. It is enough to have adjustment in height and width for comfortable work on a do-it-yourself infrared soldering station. A thermocouple is attached to the tripod to control the temperature.
The controller housing is sized according to the parts to be installed. A suitable option may be a piece of sheet metal, which can be easily cut with metal scissors. The control unit also houses fans, various buttons, as well as a display and the controller itself. Arduino acts as a controller, the functionality is quite sufficient for do-it-yourself soldering of BGA circuits.
Details for a homemade device
Before assembling any equipment with your own hands, you need to prepare materials and tools. For an infrared soldering iron you will need:
- A set of halogen lamps, the number of which depends on the shape of the future lower heater of the soldering station, the optimal number is selected in the range from 4 to 6 pieces.
- Ceramic infrared head with a power of at least 400 watts for the upper heater.
- Shower head hose for wires, aluminum corners.
- Steel wire, a fastener from an old camera or table lamp for making a tripod.
- Arduino controller, 2 relays and thermocouples, as well as a 5 volt power supply that can be made from a mobile phone charger.
- Screws, connectors and additional peripherals.
During the assembly process, drawings will be needed, which elementary knowledge in electronics will help to disassemble.
Application and device
An infrared soldering iron is used mainly when there is no access to replaceable components. It is used when replacing small parts, the main advantage is the absence of deposits and other deposits, as when working with a conventional soldering iron, as well as a small possibility of damaging neighboring elements. For home use, it is possible to make a soldering iron with your own hands using a cigarette lighter from a car.
The device operates when powered by 12 volts, such a voltage can be obtained by using a converter or an unnecessary power supply for a computer.
Manufacturing
Before assembling the soldering station, the heating element is removed from the cigarette lighter housing. Power wires are connected to the power contacts, it is possible to connect a copper wire with insulation to the central wire. It is not difficult to make a soldering iron, it is enough to isolate the connection at a distance from the heating element, it is possible to use a heat shrink tube.
The body is made of refractory material. It is possible to use a non-working soldering iron or purchase a piece of steel. It is necessary to ensure that the wires do not touch. It is important to understand that this kind of device is used for minor work, since temperature thresholds and other parameters are not controlled.