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Hot Air station from Harbor Freight Plastic welder??

J

James Lerch

Jan 1, 1970
0
Might it be possible to fabricate a simple hot air re-work station
from a harbor freight plastic welding "machine"?

Here's the item in question (which I recieved as a gift and have no
use for).
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592

Thinking that it's pretty much a hot air station already, would it be
feasable to:

Add Thermocouple, adjustable diaghpram pump, and Pic controller to
create a semi usable Hot Air re-work station?

Mostly, I'm just looking to de-soldier larger SMD chips, and also can
you have too many intersting projects?? :)

If the answer is "yes, maybe" and since I've never held a hot air
soldiering iron:

How accurate must the output air temp be?

Exactly what temp range should I anticipate?

How much air flow?

Any ideas (other than the obvious "go buy a real one")

And no, my income does not depend on this device, its strictly a
method of killing time and money.. :)
--
Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction,testing, and coating site)
http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa_Gen (My 15KW generator project)

"Anything that can happen, will happen" -Stephen Pollock from:
"Particle Physics for Non-Physicists: A Tour of the Microcosmos"

" Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. "
 
G

GregS

Jan 1, 1970
0
Might it be possible to fabricate a simple hot air re-work station
from a harbor freight plastic welding "machine"?

Here's the item in question (which I recieved as a gift and have no
use for).
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592

Thinking that it's pretty much a hot air station already, would it be
feasable to:

Add Thermocouple, adjustable diaghpram pump, and Pic controller to
create a semi usable Hot Air re-work station?

Mostly, I'm just looking to de-soldier larger SMD chips, and also can
you have too many intersting projects?? :)

If the answer is "yes, maybe" and since I've never held a hot air
soldiering iron:

How accurate must the output air temp be?

Exactly what temp range should I anticipate?

How much air flow?

Any ideas (other than the obvious "go buy a real one")

And no, my income does not depend on this device, its strictly a
method of killing time and money.. :)

Trying to compare my Weller WRS3000.
I have to use the lowest air flow of 10. 10 what I would have to look
up, but its very small amount. I have to jack temp up to
max usually to close to 1000 degrees to melt solder. I have not done much or
had any success with this pen. I mostly use it to clean off boards
and it prevents moisture build up when i blow off alcohol, but the fine tips
controls the pattern so I have even melted glue sticks, or made some
of my hot melt jobs pretty.

greg
 
G

GregS

Jan 1, 1970
0
Trying to compare my Weller WRS3000.
I have to use the lowest air flow of 10. 10 what I would have to look
up, but its very small amount. I have to jack temp up to
max usually to close to 1000 degrees to melt solder. I have not done much or
had any success with this pen. I mostly use it to clean off boards
and it prevents moisture build up when i blow off alcohol, but the fine tips
controls the pattern so I have even melted glue sticks, or made some
of my hot melt jobs pretty.

greg

I might get one of those HF units for other uses. I am also going to check if
they have the resistor assortment case in the store.

greg
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
GregS said:
I might get one of those HF units for other uses. I am also going to check if
they have the resistor assortment case in the store.

Last time I looked they only had the flat boxes. We bought them anyhow
because we urgently needed somthing at that client (start-up, basically
didn't have an electronics lab at that time).
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
James said:
Might it be possible to fabricate a simple hot air re-work station
from a harbor freight plastic welding "machine"?

Here's the item in question (which I recieved as a gift and have no
use for).
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592

Thinking that it's pretty much a hot air station already, would it be
feasable to:

Add Thermocouple, adjustable diaghpram pump, and Pic controller to
create a semi usable Hot Air re-work station?

Mostly, I'm just looking to de-soldier larger SMD chips, and also can
you have too many intersting projects?? :)

If the answer is "yes, maybe" and since I've never held a hot air
soldiering iron:

How accurate must the output air temp be?

Exactly what temp range should I anticipate?

How much air flow?

Any ideas (other than the obvious "go buy a real one")

And no, my income does not depend on this device, its strictly a
method of killing time and money.. :)


http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals/41000-41999/41592.pdf


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
 
B

Benj

Jan 1, 1970
0
James said:
Might it be possible to fabricate a simple hot air re-work station
from a harbor freight plastic welding "machine"?

Here's the item in question (which I recieved as a gift and have no
use for).
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592

Thinking that it's pretty much a hot air station already, would it be
feasable to:

Add Thermocouple, adjustable diaghpram pump, and Pic controller to
create a semi usable Hot Air re-work station?

Mostly, I'm just looking to de-soldier larger SMD chips, and also can
you have too many intersting projects?? :)

If the answer is "yes, maybe" and since I've never held a hot air
soldiering iron:

I think the answer is yes, maybe! I like this idea. I think I'm going
to buy one of these to play with! My experience is that a single hot
air pencil like this is not going to be too cool for SMD rework. The
usual station with solder sucker and hot air is useful to a point but
to REALLY suck the big chips off you have to heat ALL the leads at
once. Going round and round with a pencil won't cut it.

But there are possibilities here! The way you'd use this on a small
chip would be to first suck the excess solder off the leads and then
use hot air to lift the leads on one side and then the other. When
there are leads all the way around, however, you need to heat them all
at once.

You might do that mounting 4 hot air pencils together or building a
manifold to direct the hot air. The big machines I've used to remove
SMDs had a pot load of manifolds in different shapes each to direct
the air onto the leads of a given chip style. Usually a square tube
surrounded by another square tube of a larger size where the hot air
came down on the leads between the two tubes. To lift the SMD there
was a silicone rubber suction cup activated with an air vacuum that
sucked onto the top of the chip and supplied an upward force to lift
it when the legs all melted. Totally effective. Totally slick! And Oh
yeah, TOTALLY expensive!

I have been long wanting to put together a cheap homebrew version of
one of these devices. And you've opened some real possibilities with
this plastic welder thingie.

Yeah, may take some adapting, but I'm optimistic. In my experience air
flow and temperature control isn't really all that critical so long as
you keep in in a decent range to melt solder and remove the heat as
soon as the part desolders. I think you are onto something here.

Benj
 
E

Ecnerwal

Jan 1, 1970
0
I suppose you could, but places like MPJA (just a customer, and that was
perhaps 10 years ago) have actual (if presumably somewhat cheesy, given
the price - but you're looking at HF, the definition of cheesy) hot air
rework stations for $100, so spending $40 for this and then adding a
pump (since it needs an air supply), etc. will probably cost you more.
They include several nozzles, and have other nozzles available to fit
various packages.

Benj said:
But there are possibilities here! The way you'd use this on a small
chip would be to first suck the excess solder off the leads and then
use hot air to lift the leads on one side and then the other.

I've been doing a bit of SMD rework with an iron - no 4-sided packages -
just 0805s and SIPs. Desoldering actually impairs the process (with an
iron) - with a good bit of solder everything can get fluid and the part
can be moved - desoldering first makes it difficult to get the part hot
(lousy contact) and causes it to cool off more quickly, so it sticks.
Even with air, I'd expect desoldering to be irrelevant if the part can
be heated all around.

I have been contemplating a hot air setup myself. If cooking it up as a
project is the aim, why not seek out old/junk hair-dryers or toasters as
cheap/free sources of nichrome wire and really roll your own - if buying
parts, I'd expect that buying the $100 version would be cheaper as well
as faster.
 
J

Joerg

Jan 1, 1970
0
LVMarc said:
The temp and airflow would enable you to reflow the paste flow to build
widgets and to soften large areas and non destructively remove as well!
lloks like a winner! Not clear on one thing.. does it make itown air
flow or do yu need a tank or compressed air supply. please have orogianl
poster confirm whter it blows own air!

Looks like it needs to be connected to an air system. I guess they
assume that a real man's garage will contain the biggest honking
compressor the neighborhood has seen. Red, at least a 5ft tall tank, and
loud.
 
R

Rich Webb

Jan 1, 1970
0
I suppose you could, but places like MPJA (just a customer, and that was
perhaps 10 years ago) have actual (if presumably somewhat cheesy, given
the price - but you're looking at HF, the definition of cheesy) hot air
rework stations for $100, so spending $40 for this and then adding a
pump (since it needs an air supply), etc. will probably cost you more.
They include several nozzles, and have other nozzles available to fit
various packages.

Other places (been looking for a "home unit" myself) to check are
http://www.howardelectronics.com/ (lots of Xytronic gear)
https://store.sra-solder.com/ (Aoyue)
http://www.web-tronics.com aka www.circuitspecialists.com (Xytronic
and rebranded Aoyue)
I've been doing a bit of SMD rework with an iron - no 4-sided packages -

Pick up some Chip Quik. Worked like a dream for me on a 48 pin TQFP
(0.5 mm pitch) with just an iron and good ol' Kester #44 paste. Even
though it's relatively expensive stuff (US$8-ish per foot) it may be
the way to go for onesie-twosie usage.
 
J

James Lerch

Jan 1, 1970
0
LVMarc wrote:

Looks like it needs to be connected to an air system. I guess they
assume that a real man's garage will contain the biggest honking
compressor the neighborhood has seen. Red, at least a 5ft tall tank, and
loud.

Yea, but mines older than I am :)

In any event, yes it needs an air pump. The original device came with
a cheap (surprise) pressure regulator used to adjust the output air
temp.

I'm thinking that I can rig one of the cheap fish-tank based diapharm
pumps and regulate air flow with electronic circuit (as opposed to
plugging air pump into wall outlet).

Once air flow can be electronicly regulated, I just need thermocouple
and some type of SSR based temp controll circuit.

BTW, I almost purchased a real hot air stating, but looking at it (and
already owning the useless harbor freight plastic welder) I figured
what the heck? It's only going to get used to make projects, why not
make a project out of the hot air gun :)
--
Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction,testing, and coating site)
http://lerch.no-ip.com/ChangFa_Gen (My 15KW generator project)

"Anything that can happen, will happen" -Stephen Pollock from:
"Particle Physics for Non-Physicists: A Tour of the Microcosmos"

" Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. "
 
S

Spehro Pefhany

Jan 1, 1970
0
Looks like it needs to be connected to an air system. I guess they
assume that a real man's garage will contain the biggest honking
compressor the neighborhood has seen. Red, at least a 5ft tall tank, and
loud.

Yes, of course! But not the wimpy noisy oilless type, a real man uses
a (relatively) quiet 5HP or better, 240VAC two-stage oil compressor.
I'm still smarting that I missed the local HD sale of a new display
model 80-gallon Ingersoll Rand at 1/2 price. Far better than those
$500 Sam's Club specials.

Of course the real man had better drain the tank regularly, or a photo
of his house and what's left of him might show up in the local news
when the tank finally rusts through-- there's a heck of a lot of
energy stored in those tanks. I'm waiting to hear about injuries from
all the cheap offshore $100 ones (including a nailer) being sold. I
bet most people don't bother reading the manual. There's still enough
energy in the little tanks to cause injury.



Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
 
G

Glen Walpert

Jan 1, 1970
0
Yes, of course! But not the wimpy noisy oilless type, a real man uses
a (relatively) quiet 5HP or better, 240VAC two-stage oil compressor.
I'm still smarting that I missed the local HD sale of a new display
model 80-gallon Ingersoll Rand at 1/2 price. Far better than those
$500 Sam's Club specials.

Of course the real man had better drain the tank regularly, or a photo
of his house and what's left of him might show up in the local news
when the tank finally rusts through-- there's a heck of a lot of
energy stored in those tanks. I'm waiting to hear about injuries from
all the cheap offshore $100 ones (including a nailer) being sold. I
bet most people don't bother reading the manual. There's still enough
energy in the little tanks to cause injury.

Of course real men keep their compressors in the workshop not the
garage, and they have an automatic drain valve installed on the big
one :).

While even small compressor tanks store a fair bit of energy I have
never heard of an injury caused by the fairly frequent occurrence of
rust out. If the tanks are made to the applicable parts of the ASME
pressure vessel code then the material is a relatively low strength,
highly ductile steel not prone to brittle fracture. The usual failure
starts out as a slow leak which will increase gradually until noticed.

Of course you may not have a lot of reason to assume that Chinese
compressor tanks conform to code if you use the historical code
conformance of other Chinese products as an indicator!

For the hot air soldering application a nitrogen tank with regulator
would be the way to go for lead free. For regular old fashioned
tin-lead I prefer a system based on a small centrifigual blower at
lower pressure and higher flow rates than used by small hot air
plastic welders. But the HF plastic welder should work fine within
its size limitations if used appropriatly (preheat is essential, plop
your board down on a pancake griddle for instance) and adequate
temperature regulation should be possible with just an air pressure
regulator and a variac or light dimmer, given some means of temp
measurement.
 
Hi

Why on earth will I want to create such a crude device for soldering smt
just go and pick up
a cheap copy of hakko 850 and get heads that fit smd packages so that you
do not blow
surrounding cap off the board.

www.sra-solder.com sells
Aoyue 850A++ SMD Hot Air Rework Station at 100us and all the hakko nozzels
fit the system

look also at the nozzels

https://store.sra-solder.com/section.php?xSec=52

Try use the
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592
as paint stripper.

Arie
 
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