Board wave soldering

Typing "Optimizer Wave Solder" in Google brought back this:
http://www.techinfocorp.com/wso/howandwhy.htm
I have no relationship with this company.

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The question you should ask is: What's the difference between an Optimizer and a WaveRider?

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The Optimizer can be run through your wave like a regular board. It measures temps, times and parallelism of your waves in relationship to your board (pot to conveyor). Run the Optimizer till you get you temps, times and are parallel to your waves. This should result in optimum wave solder yields. Run product till you do achieve best yields, and then rerun the Optimizer. Now you have a recorded known set numbers for you product that produce best yields. Next time yields go down you can run the Optimizer and see if your numbers are where they need to be. It can also be used as a maintenance tool to assure the wave is right where it needs to be after a P.M.

If you have any time with wave solder, you'll know that your settings that work one day don't work the next. Bent fingers, pot dross, irregular P.M.s etc..... all change the flow of solder. So the best thing is to collect parameter numbers of what is really happening in your wave. This is what this tool can give you. It measures the parameters where the rubber meets the road.

This is the theory behind it. Each company that uses it is different, but like any tool, can be useful if you use it right. Ours worked pretty well till our NPI manager ran it through the reflow oven. I thought it was better than the old glass plate process (99% of you are asking "What is the glass plate process?"). We still use the pallet it came with and use our Slim Kic with it.

Demo The Optimizer and see if it's worth it to you.

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