It’s most likely not worth explaining how necessary a soldering station is for operating and repairing modern electronic equipment; it’s just a waste of time. Unfortunately, even the most budget options for such equipment cost a lot of money, from 10 thousand rubles and more, so to work at home you have to look for options for making a soldering station with your own hands. This is not an easy task, requiring patience in debugging and setting up the control component of the soldering station.
Options for building a soldering station
Among all the useful and not so useful information available on the Internet, you can find a lot of homemade circuits and devices, even options for making homemade thermocouples and hair dryers. In practice, for resoldering and warming up electronic components of motherboards and video cards of computers, control stations and other microprocessor equipment, two types of installations are most often used:
- A design that operates on the principle of heat transfer by hot air. Assembling such a hot-air soldering station with your own hands is quite simple, but on one condition, most of the components must be purchased ready-made, and not tried to be made in a makeshift way;
- The non-contact installation works on the principle of a thermal emitter. A do-it-yourself infrared soldering station is assembled using powerful halogen lamps and a reflector system. To control heating, the software capabilities of the laptop are used.
The coolest soldering station, the performance of which has been confirmed in practice, is recognized to be one made from a reflective mirror and a powerful 500W halogen lamp.
For your information! With the correct settings, such a soldering station was able to solder contacts with hard silver solder.
But for soldering or heating, such a device will be deadly, because the main criterion when choosing a soldering station option should be the controllability of surface heating with an accuracy of 1 o C.
Building a low-power air soldering station
The design of the soldering station consists of four main elements:
- Heating process control boards;
- Housings;
- Power supply;
- Hairdryer and soldering iron.
The power supply and case are selected in accordance with the available resources. The remaining components will have to be purchased or made by yourself.
Main working tool of air soldering station
The main working part of a soldering station is a hair dryer with an electric coil and a cooler that blows hot air onto the surface of the soldering joint or microchip. Its device is simple, and if desired, you can wind a nichrome spiral from an ordinary low-voltage soldering iron onto a ceramic tube.
The heating element is insulated with several layers of fiberglass. Nichrome will not heat up to the state of hot metal, but it is necessary to insulate the surface at least so that the metal surface does not oxidize. At the outlet of the heating device, it is necessary to install a ceramic ring or nozzle with a diameter of 8-10 mm. Heat-resistant chips that fix the heating coils in old irons are best suited. The heater power for the soldering station will be required in the range of 400-500W, no less.
To organize supercharging, you can use a cooler from a computer, or use a case with a motor and a fan from a camping hair dryer as a basis. But in this case, you will have to develop your own version of controlling engine speed and air flow pressure.
Advice! There are many manually controlled schemes in which it is proposed to organize the air supply to the heating element using a remote compressor.
From practice, we can say that the air supply control of a soldering station should only be automatic, otherwise turning the pressure bypass valve on and off will make the soldering process a real pain, not work.
In addition, a thermocouple must be installed in the design of the hair dryer, with the help of which, in fact, the air temperature is regulated.
The hair dryer connection diagram can be done as shown in the figure below.
The quality of the soldering depends on how convenient and safe the design of the hair dryer is, so if you don’t want to fool yourself with homemade products, you can buy a regular hair dryer from the Luckey desktop soldering station, model 702, and simply adapt it to the control board.
Soldering station control system
From the list above, the most difficult component of a soldering station to build with your own hands is the control board. You can buy it ready-made, but if you have experience building similar structures, you can easily assemble the circuit yourself; a set of parts can be ordered online.
Of all the existing options available online, the circuit based on the ATMEGA 328p series controller is considered the most reliable and easy to use. The board is assembled based on the diagram below.
The assembly is performed on a fiberglass board, and with normal installation quality, the soldering station control system starts on the first try. When assembling the board, you will need to be extremely careful in soldering the elements, especially the power supply circuit of the chip, making a ground and trying not to overdo it with heating the legs. But, first of all, you will need to enter the control code with a programmer. A 24V-6A pulse generator with built-in overload protection is used as a power supply for the soldering station.
The control circuit of the soldering station uses a pair of powerful IRFZ44N mosfets; measures must be taken to protect against overheating and burnout. If the heater of the hair dryer turns out to be too powerful, it is quite possible that the power supply will be blocked.
It is advisable to place the triac and optoelectronic pair on a separate board, and be sure to install a cooling radiator. For optocouplers, it is recommended to use relatively low-power control LEDs with a maximum current consumption of up to 20 milliamps.
The design of the soldering station uses a five-pin soldering iron with a power of 50 W. The developers recommend using the Arrial 936, but any similar instrument with a pre-installed thermocouple can be installed.
Assembling and adjusting the operation of the station
All elements are mounted in a closed stamped housing from an old power supply, a radiator and a switch are placed on the rear wall, and a temperature indicator is located on the front wall.
The soldering station is controlled by three variable resistances of 10 kOhm. The first two regulate the temperature of the soldering iron and hair dryer, the third sets the speed of the hair dryer.
The adjustment process only concerns the adjustment of the heating temperature of the soldering iron and hair dryer on the soldering station board. To do this, connect the power to the soldering iron and use a thermocouple and tester to measure the actual heating temperature of the tip. Next, using a trimming resistor, we display the reading on the digital indicator of the station in accordance with the tester data. In a similar way, we measure the temperature of the air flow of the hair dryer and adjust the readings on the indicator using a trimmer. If you turn up the fan speed of the hair dryer, the soldering area can easily be heated to 450 o C.
Making an infrared soldering iron
Soldering stations operating on infrared radiation, with rare exceptions, are used to warm up a soldered processor, bridge or processor on a video card. As is known, processors do not tolerate overheating very well, and often, under intense load and poor heat dissipation, the low-temperature solder contacts are soldered away from the pad.
One of the barbaric ways to restore contact is to warm up the “body” of the processor with dosed thermal radiation. This can be done with a regular hairdryer or even an iron, but after such procedures a positive effect is achieved in one out of three cases. Therefore, DIY specialists prefer to build infrared heating soldering stations.
Manufacturing of housing and heating elements
Structurally, the soldering station consists of four main elements:
- Bottom heating block;
- Upper heating block;
- Tripod and heater control unit.
The computer motherboard is placed between the upper and lower cases so that the infrared flux from the upper heating system is directed primarily at the target - the processor case. The rest of the board is protected from heat by an aluminum plate or foil with a cut-out window for the processor.
The lower housing of the soldering station is used to create a heat shield, in other words, for additional heating of the board in order to reduce heat loss due to air convection.
Important! The whole trick of the soldering station is to make the heating not only efficient, but also controllable, that is, the case cannot be allowed to overheat, so the design uses a thermocouple and a halogen control interface.
As heaters, you can use an ordinary nichrome spiral placed inside quartz tubes or R7S J254 halogens.
To make the body of the lower block, you can use any suitable sized steel box on which connectors for lamps are installed. As a result, after assembling and connecting the wiring, the design of the soldering station is obtained, as in the photo.
The upper heating block is made in a similar way.
The entire device and control are mounted on a tripod from an old Soviet photographic enlarger, which has a height adjustment for the upper block. All that remains is to assemble the soldering machine control system.
Thermocouple and control
In order to prevent overheating, the soldering station uses two thermocouples - for the processor case and the rest of the surface of the motherboard. To control the soldering station, an Arduino MAX6635 interface board is used, which connects to the serial port of a home laptop or PC, for which you have to look for the appropriate software or make it yourself.
The soldering station is controlled as follows. The computer, through an interface and a thermocouple, receives information about the temperature and changes the power of the heat flow using on-off pulses of the station’s halogens. As the lamp overheats, the duration of the lamp's burning period will be reduced, and as it cools, on the contrary, it will be increased.
When assembled, the soldering station looks like in the photo. The cost to build was just over $80.
Conclusion
There are at least four more options for making a soldering machine, including one of the battery type. Which one is the most convenient to operate can only be established in a practical way, after building a full-size soldering iron. The two soldering system circuits presented in the article are the simplest and most affordable to manufacture with a very modest budget of $150.
Despite the fact that every year more and more new equipment appears in the world, more “advanced” in its technical characteristics, this does not mean that it will serve forever. Sooner or later, any mechanism fails. And no matter how reliable a part is, this does not insure it against possible failure. And when repairing such equipment, the main tool is a soldering iron. Today we will look at what is special about an infrared soldering station and what it can do.
Design characteristics
A quartz or ceramic emitter can be used as the main heating element in the design of this mechanism. Moreover, both types of devices provide fast and efficient metal soldering. By the way, the heating level of this tool on infrared soldering irons can be varied to varying degrees. Thus, thanks to the presence of a special regulator, you can select the most suitable temperature regime for the specific type of metal on which the connection (soldering) will be made.
It should be noted that the most popular type of soldering equipment are infrared stations with a type of heating that uses a focused beam. Often the design of such devices consists of two parts, which together provide local heating of the board or other component elements. As a result, you can get a very high-quality connection, while spending a minimum amount of time on soldering.
Varieties
As we noted above, an infrared soldering station can be quartz or ceramic. In order to understand the features of each of them, we will consider both types in more detail.
Ceramic
The ceramic infrared soldering station (including Achi ir6000), due to its simple design, is highly reliable, durable and durable. In this case, it takes no more than 10 minutes to warm up the entire device to the operating soldering temperature. Such stations often use a flat or hollow emitter. The latter type has much greater heating of the working surface of the emitter, as a result of which it quickly performs soldering and heats up to the desired temperature. However, the cost of such devices does not allow them to be used by everyone who repairs electronic digital equipment.
Quartz
The quartz infrared soldering station, despite its increased fragility, has a high heating rate. In just 30 seconds the emitter heats up to its operating temperature.
An industrial or homemade infrared soldering station is often used for intermittent processes, where there is frequent switching on and off of the device. Ceramic mechanisms are more vulnerable to frequent switching on and can instantly fail if operating rules are not followed.
As infrared soldering heating elements stations Ceramic or quartz infrared emitters can be used. The use of infrared heaters provides a high local heating rate and the ability to effectively control the temperature profile of group soldering.
Soldering stations in which heating is produced by a focused beam of infrared radiation have become widespread among soldering equipment. Such soldering stations consist of two heating parts, which provide local heating of the board and, accordingly, high quality and heating speed.
The infrared emitter, which is located at the top, is often small in size. Its task is to carry out, at the right moment, rapid local heating of a certain part of the board to the melting temperature of the solder.
Infrared emitters, which are located below, heat the board to a relatively low temperature in preparation for the soldering process. The dimensions and number of emitters depend on the size of the board.
Ceramic infrared emitters
Ceramic infrared emitters durable and quite strong. The speed of reaching the temperature regime is about 10 minutes. For soldering stations, flat or hollow emitters are often used (hollow ones have a higher temperature on the surface of the emitter and reach temperature conditions faster, but they are more expensive). To ensure more efficient beam distribution, it is recommended to additionally use reflectors for IR emitters. Emitters are produced only in standard sizes. Ceramic infrared emitters are best used for long-term operation of a soldering station.
Quartz infrared emitters
Quartz infrared emitters are characterized by a rapid rise to temperature (about 30 seconds), but are more fragile. To make an infrared soldering station, you can choose as follows:
Buy soldering station IK-650 PRO in installments/in parts
IK-650 PRO is not a dream, but a reality. Implementing a program for the availability of high-quality soldering technology, TERMOPRO tried to split the purchase of a BGA repair station into several small and quite feasible steps.
Option #1
Buy IR-650 in installments - pay 50%, and your new infrared soldering station will earn the rest, and we will wait a little.
The conditions are simple:
- The desire and ability to honestly and on time fulfill your obligations under the supply contract.
- The organizational and legal form of the enterprise is individual entrepreneur or LLC.
- Business registration for at least six months.
- Confirmed availability of a service point or other premises.
- No tax arrears, court penalties, or bankruptcy or liquidation decisions.
- Prepayment 50%, and the rest in installments over 6 months in equal installments without %.
Before making a decision, we ask you to properly assess your capabilities again. Remember the simple rule of payback - you must be guaranteed at least 10 BGA re-solderings per month plus income from other types of service work.
Option No. 2
IK-650 PRO is modular equipment - start by purchasing an NP 34-24 PRO heating table with a TP 2-10 KD PRO regulator, and you will immediately receive a huge advantage: you will have access to uniform heating of boards without deformation, and the BGA temperature will now be under your control. Start earning money and you will quickly acquire the remaining blocks.
Option #3
The secondary market is also a way out. TERMOPRO provides a guarantee, technical support and consumables for the entire fleet of IK-650 PRO stations, except stations from the “black list” .
Before purchasing, it will be useful to find out who was the first owner of the IR-650 PRO and be sure to check the availability of serial numbers (they are pasted on the bottom of the thermostats). Report them to TERMOPRO for authorization. Only then agree to the deal and never pay in advance , cases of fraud have become more frequent. When you see a live station, check the correspondence between paper serial numbers and electronic numbers.
Software application "TERMOPRO-CENTER"
The TERMOPRO IR-650 PRO infrared soldering station works really well. This is largely due to the multifunctional software application “TERMOPRO-CENTER”. The main difference between the IR-650 PRO and other infrared soldering stations is the fabulous soldering capabilities in completely non-fabulous environmental conditions.
"TERMOPRO-CENTER" provides automatic thermal profiling of BGA soldering with temperature feedback on the printed circuit board. BGA soldering algorithms, with several degrees of protection, are designed in such a way that nothing overheats, even with operator errors.
The Thermopro-Center application solves the problem of maintaining high reliability and ease of operation, as well as guaranteeing repeatability of the soldering process with maximum accuracy with optimal flexibility of process equipment.
The ThermoPro-Center software package contains the answer to almost any technological situation; the maximum possible number of “hard-wired” functions are implemented using ThermoPro tools.
The program, armed with equipment, without exaggeration, is a powerful not only production, but also a research tool. The tools contained in it can be used both for the implementation of the thermodynamic soldering process, and for its fixation, visualization, analysis and adaptation to environmental conditions.
For small-scale and single assembly of circuit boards, the infrared soldering station IK-650 PRO provides a double advantage. You get in your hands not only the ability to solder BGAs and other complex microcircuits, but also an excellent tool for group soldering of SMD components onto printed circuit boards using a thermal profile. The quality of soldering is ensured at the level of chamber and conveyor reflow furnaces, and even in feedback mode on the temperature of the board. (you can solder right away with virtually no setup, naturally with a little practice).
Download the Termopro-Center application and other useful information
Delivery set of infrared soldering station IK-650 PRO
| MODULE NAME |
PURPOSE OF THE MODULE |
||
| TERMOPRO - CENTER | multifunctional software application for controlling the IR station IK-650 PRO | ||
| 1,2 | IKV-65 PRO | upper heater of the IR station on a movable stand | |
| 3 | laser | laser pointer for aiming at the center before soldering BGA | |
| 4 | aperture | replaceable diaphragms for the upper heater of the IR station limit the heating zone of the printed circuit board (holes 30x30, 40x40, 50x50, 60x60 mm). | |
| 5 | IR 1-10 KD PRO | The thermostat provides temperature control of the upper heater of the IR station and control of the temperature of the printed circuit board | |
| 6 | PDSH-300 | hinged clamp for installing a temperature sensor on a printed circuit board | |
| 7 | TD-1000 (3 pcs.) | external thermal sensor for monitoring the temperature of the printed circuit board when soldering BGA | |
| 8 | NP 34-24 PRO | two-zone wide-format heating table for uniform heating of printed circuit boards. The IR station IK-650 PRO can be equipped with other thermal tables of the NP and IKT series, depending on the task | |
| 9 | TP 2-10 AB PRO | a two-channel thermostat provides control of the temperatures of zones of the NP 34-24 PRO thermostat (the thermostat can be replaced with TP 2-10 KD PRO, with a built-in board temperature measurement channel) | |
| 10 | FSM-15, FSK-15 (10 pcs. each) |
You can choose an individual configuration for the IR station by retrofitting it:
video camera,
video installer,
a thermotable of a different size,
3-channel temperature meter,
frame board holder
Connection diagram for infrared soldering station IK-650 PRO
Other board heating systems for IR Station
The infrared soldering station can be equipped with different board heaters to suit your needs.
An infrared station, equipped with bottom heating, is excellent equipment for repairing televisions, laptops, computers, of course, it is widely used as equipment for repairing electronics, and it is also modern equipment for repairing automobile units and CNC machines.
Additional devices and accessories for the IR Station
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The device expands the capabilities of the IK-650 PRO infrared soldering station for monitoring the temperature of the board. THERMOSCOPE is certified as a measuring instrument for military purposes. (manufactured by TERMOPRO) |
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BGA stencils The BGA reballing kit is a necessary addition to an infrared soldering station. The set includes a mandrel and 130 BGA stencils (made in China) |
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Fixture for direct heated BGA stencils. Fixes stencils from 8 x 8 mm to 50 x 50 mm. Clamping key included. |
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The holder is convenient for soldering BGAs on small and medium-sized boards (manufactured by TERMOPRO) |
|
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PK-40, PK-50, PK-60 3D IR ray concentrators An infrared soldering station can have even better performance if 3D concentrators are used instead of flat diaphragms. (manufactured by TERMOPRO, the product is patented)
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Additional 45° diaphragms for the upper heater of the IR station, (manufactured by TERMOPRO) |
A soldering iron is good. Good for DIP parts, well, for those for which holes are drilled in boards. No doubt, the soldering iron is also great for SMD components, but for this you need to have a black belt in this discipline. But how, once a year, desolder and then solder a multi-legged SMD chip without special skills and equipment? Well then, read on...
I have always been frightened by multi-legged SMD microcircuits, in terms of installation, and not in appearance, in QFP packages and various SO-shki, I won’t even mention BGA. I once had a bad experience, did it, and included a controller in the SO housing in the design. During the debugging process something went wrong and I had to resolder it. The board and controller conditionally withstood the first dismantling, but after the second, the board and controller went into the trash. As a result, I installed the chip in a dip package and my torment ended. That's all there is to it, while somehow browsing the Internet, I accidentally ended up in a forum thread forum.easyelectronics.ru, from where I was redirected to radiokot.ru. After visiting Radiokot, I got the idea to make “Prikuyalnik” (® by radiokot.ru). It is the cigarette lighter as a soldering iron that will be the source of infrared radiation.
After rummaging through the bins I found a transformer from an uninterruptible power supply, which I had once been given as a gift. This transformer worked in the conversion mode 12 - 220 V, which means it will work in the opposite direction.
There is a power source! And this is already half the battle. All that was left was to find a cigarette lighter, and it was found at the local market for a symbolic price. Any cigarette lighter will do, be it a Mercedes or a Lada. By the way, the Cossack didn’t have this very important device. I decided to connect the emitter to the transformer via a PWM regulator, which later turned out to be not in vain. I chose a circuit based on the common NE555 chip. According to the experience of other users, it is less capricious.
The NE555 chip, according to the datasheet, is powered by a constant voltage in the range of 4.5 - 16V. You can also consider a slightly more capricious circuit on the UC384x. They are quite often found in switching power supplies, computer ones are no exception.
I decided not to make a printed circuit board, it was too much honor for three wires. Assembled on a breadboard.
I had to come up with a rectifier. The diode bridge is assembled using Schottky diodes, which were torn out of a burnt computer power supply. Just in case, everything is placed on the radiator, we are not Chinese, we don’t mind. Burnt-out computer power supplies are simply an excellent thing, a source of cases and all sorts of parts with radiators!
Having connected the diode bridge to the transformer and measured the open circuit voltage, I felt a little sad. No, the voltage was sufficient, even too much, 20 V at idle. Too much for my PWM controller. If I had known, I would have made a board based on UC3842, it starts working at 16V and above. But I was sad and okay, I added KREN8A (KR142EN8A, analogue of L7808...) to the power supply, and also hung a cooling fan on it.
As always, I have the minimum, but I want the maximum. I'll probably do the bottom heating too. We'll make do on a budget. The bottom heating will be based on a halogen spotlight; the station is not for constant use. A halogen lamp needs a power regulator, otherwise it will burn everything in the world, checked. I was thinking about ordering a thyristor regulator from China, but it’s time. Buying in the city means overpaying. On occasion I went to a local grocery store, they have a lot of nonsense there. And I noticed a lighting dimer on the counter. Compared to all other electrical installation products, it was distinguished by its inconspicuous appearance and price. The declared power of 600 W pleased me. I bought it for only 35 UAH ($1.3).
Let's see what's inside. A simple design, assembled on two BT136 thyristors connected in parallel. Excellent redundancy and power reserve. But why with such details and only 600 W?
But now you can see why. I look and think... The potential in our country is enormous, but our hands...
I had to wash the board, solder everything again, strengthen the power traces and change the radiator. In the photo below, visible under the orange toggle switch, you can see the new dimer radiator.
A couple of photos of how it was placed in my computer power supply case. Of course there are too many radiators, they are somewhat redundant.
The front panel is made of a piece of polycarbonate (plexiglass). I did not remove the white protective film; this gives the feeling that the plexiglass is white and not transparent. And the giblets are not translucent.
And in this photo the top cover is already installed. And here for the first time the hero of the occasion himself appears - the chandelier himself.
The cigarette lighter is screwed to a burnt-out soldering iron. All the insides of the soldering iron have been dismantled.
The heating element is attached to the base through annealed steel wire, wound in the form of a spiral to improve heat dissipation. It gets super hot and melts the insulation of the wire, so you shouldn’t even try to screw the copper wire straight on.
Bottom heating. There are no special design features here. A halogen spotlight acts as bottom heating. The spotlight is stabilized by three legs with a rubber base. As you know, a structure on three legs will never swing; it has been proven in geometry that only one plane can be constructed through three points. The glass on top is covered with copper foil with the remains of PCB, once torn off from the old board. A 150 W lamp is installed.
Now the soldering station is ready.
After playing around a bit I can come to some conclusions. You can solder microcircuits with the buoy itself without bottom heating, but it takes a little longer. You can remove small SMDs (resistors, capacitors) using only bottom heating, if you no longer need the board itself. The fact is that there is no thermal stabilization and over time the board begins to overheat; dismantling a large number of elements can take a long time. During experiments, when dismantling on the lower heating, I overheated the board and it swelled. This swelling was accompanied by a good pop; as they say, I almost “peeed” from surprise. For one-time jobs, you can't imagine anything better.
And in order to show that it still works, I suggest looking at the following photographs.
An old motherboard was chosen as a victim. It has a chip with a large number of small components located around it, which makes it difficult to work with a familiar tool. In the next photo the chip is sealed off.
I would like to draw a line under what has been said above. The custodian has the right to be. Of course, it does not claim to be a “professional” tool, but it copes with its tasks. And with today's board architecture, it is simply necessary for an amateur.
