Vapor phase soldering setup

Tales of woe that teach. We learn best through failure sometimes
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This is for tales of woe that teach. We often learn quickest through failure that shows us how our thinking was off, and of course, sometimes it's funny at least in hindsight. Share your "Doh!" moments here.

Vapor phase soldering setup

Postby Doug Coulter » Mon Aug 23, 2010 8:21 am

Judging by site stats, this one was one of the more popular stories on an older site I ran, so to get the ball rolling, here's a link.

Of course, this did eventually work, but for various reasons we don't use it much. The extra hassle of having to have a mask to apply solder through, and place all the parts first without bumping some other part off alignment meant we went to a Metcal soldering station for most short run SMD work.

Any real experimenter has these head slap moments -- letting the smoke out of parts because you forgot some peak condition that is obvious in hindsight and other things like that. In some ways, tales of things failing in ways you didn't expect -- along with the cure, are the most informative there are, they help others think about the possibilities before they make the smoke sometimes!
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Doug Coulter
 
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