I am going to try my hand at SMD soldering, and I want to try using a hot plate and stencil. Amazon has two hot plates, and I was just wondering if there’s a significant difference in features or quality between these two. Also, I’m open to other recommendations.
VEVOR Preheating Oven T8280 1600W Infrared Preheating Station Hot Plate PCB Preheater 280x270MM Amazon.com
LED Microcomputer Electric Hot Plate Preheat Soldering Preheating Station Welder Hot Plate Rework Heater Lab 110V 800W 200X200mm Plate Amazon.com
czu001:
I am going to try my hand at SMD soldering, and I want to try using a hot plate and stencil. Amazon has two hot plates, and I was just wondering if there’s a significant difference in features or quality between these two. Also, I’m open to other recommendations.
I had some anodized .064” aluminium sheeting laying around and used it for the sled.
Remember, if you add the Teflon to the top of the hotplate and use the sled like the post describes, the hotplate will probably need to be set to ~10°C hotter. i.e. 160° for 150° on the sled.
Suggest you use a hot air wand with the hotplate as mentioned in the thread.
However, you can adjust the hotplate to ~250+°C and melt the solder directly.
I always use the hotplate @160°C with the hot air wand @~350°C and follow the graph timing for 63/37 solder paste.
BTW
When using a syringe to apply solder paste, suggest you transfer .4ml paste from the original 10ml syringe to a 1ml syringe (use luer lock coupler).
A 1ml syringe is soooooo much easier to use; also using a dispenser to hold the syringe makes work simple, I use both a motorized and manual version.
I use three different methods for adding solder paste to PCBs:
