I bought a ADXL330 and IDG-330 last year but have been too busy to solder it. Now that I finally found the time, the question is, can I reflow boards using a clothes iron set upside down? The linen setting should have a temperature of 230 degrees Celsius or 445 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve seen it done somewhere on the web before but it involves using a stream of hot air from the top. Is the hot air necessary because I don’t have one? Has anyone tried it with any success? I’ve searched the forum and it seems that the only use for a clothes iron is for tone transfer.
Is clothes iron reflow possible (without the hot air)?
I bought a ADXL330 and IDG-330 last year but have been too busy to solder it. Now that I finally found the time, the question is, can I reflow boards using a clothes iron set upside down? The linen setting should have a temperature of 230 degrees Celsius or 445 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve seen it done somewhere on the web before but it involves using a stream of hot air from the top. Is the hot air necessary because I don’t have one? Has anyone tried it with any success? I’ve searched the forum and it seems that the only use for a clothes iron is for tone transfer.
Is clothes iron reflow possible (without the hot air)?
Thanks for answering!
Danz,
Yes I would think it would be possible, but risky. Because solder paste is pretty forgiving…it may work, if you do not heat the board and components to fast. But you will need the iron to cool off pretty quick once the solder has “flowed”.
I’m not telling you to do it, I’m just saying it is possible. Your board, your parts, your money, your decision.
A cheap toaster oven would be a lot better, even without any electronic control, because you can switch it off and open the door to bring the temperature down quickly.
I don’t think Leon nor I answered you question to the best of our abilities.
The problem with the method you are attempting to use is as follows:
Getting the board (s) to temp is not the problem. What to do after the board has reached reflow temp may be. Most reflow profiles keep the solder in the liquidous state for a short period of time (30 seconds there abouts if possible). The less heat you subject your chips to…the better.
How do you plan to remove the board from the heat quickly? (especially if the solder is still in a liquidous state) The iron has a very massive heating surface that is going to be saturated with heat. It is going to take valuable time to bleed the heat from that anvil.
Also cooling of the board too fast can be a problem. It can cause the board to warp. You want to get out of the liquidous state pretty fast, and let the board cool with a steady rate.
I will not say it won’t work, I just want you to be informed of what could possibly occur. I’m pretty sure someone out there has done it before.
I wish you luck with whatever method you choose to use.
If you do decide to press ahead with the iron method. I would like to hear of your success or failure. But if it does become a less than success, it may help someone in the future.
Thanks a lot for the heads up guys! The main reason for me using the iron is because its already laying around in the house. Like Leon said, a toaster oven is cheap, but then again it still cost something and I’m really tight now.
Anyways, I will give it a try and see what I end up with. So it seems that cooling is the problem. Assuming I can remove the board from the iron once it reflows and leave it somewhere to cool to room tempearature, will the cooling be too fast? Or, if the cooling is not fast enough, I could place in on top of a large piece of alluminum to help sink away the heat.
I just got an idea! I could set up a rig with a large aluminum plate fix to it. Then the iron is place under the plate touching it and the PCB on top of the plate. By having a large aluminum plate sandwich in between, it would take a longer time to heat up to reflow temperature thus, solve the problem of the board/components heating up to fast. Once the solder reflows, I could simply remove the iron from the bottom and let the aluminum plate dissipate the heat to cool down.
danz:
I just got an idea! I could set up a rig with a large aluminum plate fix to it. Then the iron is place under the plate touching it and the PCB on top of the plate. By having a large aluminum plate sandwich in between, it would take a longer time to heat up to reflow temperature thus, solve the problem of the board/components heating up to fast. Once the solder reflows, I could simply remove the iron from the bottom and let the aluminum plate dissipate the heat to cool down.
Does this sound plausible?
Thanks for the advice!
Danz,
This sounds like the best chance for success. You have a way to use the heat and remove the part from the heat. It’s doesn’t need to be huge, but large enough to hold the board.
Just be careful and do not burn yourself.
Thanks for understanding we are helping towards your success.
My first reflow was with a toaster oven and I actually left it in too long (too long at reflow temps)
It worked, but the color of the traces was a dead give away something was amiss with the reflow. They actually “blued” some.
Good luck, let us know. It may become yet another way to reflow a board.
I’m not an expert on ironing – I’ve actually never ironed anything in my life! But maybe that’s why I wear a lot of cotton. Anyway!
Don’t irons release a stream of steam to press clothes? And wouldn’t steaming a board be a really bad idea for a lot of reasons, including oxidizing exposed traces, the solder, etc.?
Also, of course, if you are going to use a new method (e.g. an iron) instead of something a little more well-known (toaster oven), you might want to make a few practice boards with very cheap components before frying $50 worth of accelerometers and gryoscopes, too.
danz:
I just got an idea! I could set up a rig with a large aluminum plate fix to it.
I've reflowed a couple of boards like that over an electric stove burner. I put the board on a piece of aluminum shim (maybe 1/32" or so?) to hold it, protect it from the burner and spread the heat a little (also to keep from getting toxic lead on the stove...). As soon as all the solder was liquid, I lifted the board+sheet from the heat to let it cool. It worked fine (although I only did a couple of boards that way so maybe I just got lucky).
Be sure to preheat the board for a minute or so before bringing it up to soldering temperature, regardless of what kind of heat source you use … check out the reflow temperature profiles in the back of a few data sheets to get an idea of what the industry expects you to be doing with their chips. Even if you don’t have the equipment to follow the profile exactly, it gives an idea of what to try for.
silic0re:
I’m not an expert on ironing – I’ve actually never ironed anything in my life! But maybe that’s why I wear a lot of cotton. Anyway!
Don’t irons release a stream of steam to press clothes? And wouldn’t steaming a board be a really bad idea for a lot of reasons, including oxidizing exposed traces, the solder, etc.?
Also, of course, if you are going to use a new method (e.g. an iron) instead of something a little more well-known (toaster oven), you might want to make a few practice boards with very cheap components before frying $50 worth of accelerometers and gryoscopes, too.
best of luck,
silic0re
Most irons do have a water tank to do steam ironing. Just don’t add any water to the tank.
Also with the Iron upside down, the water would run out every where.
I don’t think steam will the the main issue. The temp and time at that temp will be the governing conditions.
Wow! Thanks for all those who reply. It was really helpful. I will most certainly try but obviously not with the expensive chips on the first few tries (I’m not that bold/stupid). Spark Fun does recommend a hot skillet over the oven and I don’t see a lot of difference a hot skillet is from a clothes iron. I will post again after my hopefully successful experiments.
Ok, so here’s what I got so far. I made some dummy boards and reflowed some scavenged components on it.
At first, I placed a piece of 2.5"x5" aluminum plate on top of the iron and the board on top of that. Either I was impatient or the heat wasn’t enough to reflow the solder paste (the aluminum was pretty thick to begin with).
Then I placed the board directly on the iron and the solder paste melted. I immediately slide the board off to the aluminum plate to cool once all the solder paste was shiny. I waited for the board to cool. I was too excited to note the time, but I think it took less then 5 minutes.
There were no damage that I can identify visually, it looks perfectly fine. Though I can’t really test any of the components because I wasn’t sure whether the components were in working condition to start with and, it was a dummy board, the connections made no sense at all.
I even tried reflowing a regular non-SMT 14-pin DIP. I bent the skinnier part of the leads under the chip and made sure all the leads were completely flat on the surface. It turn out looking A LOT NICER then if I were to solder it by hand (although it could be just me having bad soldering skills )
Am I correct to assume that a non-SMT device was not designed to withstand the temperature of reflow soldering? If so, can I assume that if a non-SMT device survives reflow soldering then an SMT device should probably survive?
So, the conclusion thus far is: clothes iron reflow produces VISUALLY good boards. I will test a few more times before going for the real thing.
A shiney surface is a very good indication you were atleast close enough to get the solder to flow right.
A non-surface mount component can take quite a bit of heat. You must remember the pins take the heat of a soldering iron which is actually hotter than a reflow oven. They don’t take it long which is usually listed in there datasheet.
Unless you soder for a living and have done it for a year or two, reflowing is always going to look better. Making a good solder joint is not hard, but making a good looking proper solder joint takes technique. Practice is the best way to improve your soldering skills. Also you must know the correct technique to get it to look good. The temperature, solder, tip, cleanliness, and process all make a difference to the “visual” part of soldering.
Now that you have done it…you see what advantages reflow soldering has.
I think quite a lot of parts can take a fair bit of heat for a short period of time - when I salvage bits for the parts bin off redundant kit, I use an electric paint stripping gun to get them off the PCB. All the parts I’ve salvaged this way that I’ve ended up using work fine. I also use the paint stripping heat gun when repairing boards (although I’m a bit more careful with the heat with PCBs I want to keep).
danz:
I just got an idea! I could set up a rig with a large aluminum plate fix to it.
I've reflowed a couple of boards like that over an electric stove burner. I put the board on a piece of aluminum shim (maybe 1/32" or so?) to hold it, protect it from the burner and spread the heat a little (also to keep from getting toxic lead on the stove...). As soon as all the solder was liquid, I lifted the board+sheet from the heat to let it cool. It worked fine (although I only did a couple of boards that way so maybe I just got lucky).
I went to the store today to buy a skillet to heat up a board I need to do some rework on. I ended up buying an electric stove burner ( http://www.gehousewares.com/Browse_Prod … gory_id=33 ) for $18 at Walmart. I threw an old chunk of 64MB SDRAM on it and was able to pull all the chips off with out scorching anything.
That stove burner looks like an ideal tool. Nice find!
I’ve been experimenting with oddball reflow techniques for ages. You can even use a candle or an oil lamp, although the heat’s pretty uneven so it only works for small boards. I have not yet tried using a woodstove (probably works pretty well once it’s up to temp; I bet Abraham Lincoln reflowed his boards on a woodstove) or a solar furnace (probably really uneven and hard to control, but who knows).
)