Building a reflow oven

When soldering boards the other day I realized I need a reflow oven. Especially for those hard-to-solder-without-microscope IC’s.

First I looked at some chinese ovens available on Ebay. However, it seemed people had a lot of problems with them. I decided to build my own using a Kickstarter kit. I bought the cheapest oven I could find, ripped it apart and modified it.

2015-09-20 13.08.51My victim!

The kickstarter kit contained a controller, solid state relays, insulation for the oven and a bunch of other stuff needed. Good quality stuff!

2015-09-20 13.47.36Controller

2015-09-24 21.24.04Solid state relays, here mounted in the oven

2015-09-25 20.04.51Insulation and controller in place!

I followed the build guide more or less, jumping a bit back and forth. The result was a well-working oven, at least so far. I made three game PCBs so far, all working flawlessly!

2015-09-26 17.46.27Oven baked game PCB

Ah, I almost forgot… These guys make excellent plastic smt stencils. Working great!