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SMT electronics assembly manufacturing forum.


Reflow profilers? worth it?

danielm

#10211

Reflow profilers? worth it? | 10 August, 1999

Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient?

Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks.

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#10212

Re: Reflow profilers? worth it? | 10 August, 1999

| Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient? | | Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks. | Danielm I would hazard a guess that most if not all of us production folk do. I can't imagine not being able to know what was going on inside my oven. Trial and error might work in a small batch oven where the cycle can be controlled. Try to replicate the profile suggested by your paste manufacturer. Read the thread on oven temperature lower on the forum page. John Thorup

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ScottM

#10213

Re: Reflow profilers? worth it? | 10 August, 1999

| Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient? | | Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks. | | | You need to profile!

Some oven manufacturers will try and sell you an oven without profile capability and state that trial and error is good (been there, long story). If you don't have profile capability on your oven then you need to invest $$$'s in (or rent, beg, borrow or steal) a stand alone unit. I have one on my oven and gives me what I need without the big $'s and fancy displays of the stand alone units.

Buy an oven with profile capability and you'll save money unless you're buying (have) 3+ ovens then a stand alone makes sense.

Cheers, Scott

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Jeff Armato

#10214

Re: Reflow profilers? worth it? | 10 August, 1999

| | Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient? | | | | Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks. | | | | | | | You need to profile! | | Some oven manufacturers will try and sell you an oven without profile capability and state that trial and error is good (been there, long story). If you don't have profile capability on your oven then you need to invest $$$'s in (or rent, beg, borrow or steal) a stand alone unit. I have one on my oven and gives me what I need without the big $'s and fancy displays of the stand alone units. | | Buy an oven with profile capability and you'll save money unless you're buying (have) 3+ ovens then a stand alone makes sense. | | Cheers, | Scott |

Purchase a KIC system they work very well

Good luck, Jeff

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JohnW

#10215

Re: Reflow profilers? worth it? - You BET! | 10 August, 1999

| | Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient? | | | | Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks. | | | Danielm | I would hazard a guess that most if not all of us production folk do. I can't imagine not being able to know what was going on inside my oven. Trial and error might work in a small batch oven where the cycle can be controlled. | Try to replicate the profile suggested by your paste manufacturer. | Read the thread on oven temperature lower on the forum page. | John Thorup | | | | | | | Danielm,

Profiling is one of the most important part's of electronic's manufacturing. Like John above I can't imagin not knowing what's going on inside that oven. Are you overheating the board / component's is it reflowing too long or not long enough, does my oven need maintained, these are a few of the thing's that you need to know to make good product never mind having an auditable process for customer's or quality std's.

Ideally you should be profiling before you run a batch of card's so you are sure your ovan is A ok, a minimum of once a week at worst with a calibration pallet.

There are 3 main system's that I've looked at Multicore's Oracle, Datapaq and Kic. They all have their good and bad point's. The Kic system is being supplied by alot of oven manufacturer's built in and the dataloger can be used as a stand alone, it does not bad prediction stuff and give's a nice simple green or red light for a good and bad profile. The multicore one is very impressive, it's very user friendly and models the oven's very well, it's prediction software is so good you almost don't have to go near the oven. It's got a system where you can drag the thermal curve to where you want it in term's of temperatures and it will give you the setting's to meet it. It's also smart enough to know that there are part's of the ovan that can't be adjusted like the zone edges and that your oven has a max temperature for each zone so after you model the oven it wont let you try and predict something your ovan can't do. The down side is that the multicore stuff wont run on a network so you can't share file's as it uses an expert system design to run prediction's for settings. The datapaq is nice n simple to use and it's prediction software is getting better all the time, it is networkable and does eveything you need the new 9000 series mole has load's of storage capacity and it can recharge while your downloading the data to the PC, they also have new software dure out soon.

There's almost an article for the smt express in the profiler's I'd guess like a road test...mmmm I wonder..

Anyway's yes you need to profile and there are many of them on the market but you have to get the onbe that suit's you best and that's doen by talking to the vendor's and trying them all out.

JohnW

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Brian Wycoff

#10216

Re: Reflow profilers? worth it? - You BET! | 12 August, 1999

| | | Does anyone use reflow profilers? Are they a good investement or is trial and error sufficient? | | | | | | Does anyone have any suggestions on profiles to try? Thanks. | | | | | Danielm | | I would hazard a guess that most if not all of us production folk do. I can't imagine not being able to know what was going on inside my oven. Trial and error might work in a small batch oven where the cycle can be controlled. | | Try to replicate the profile suggested by your paste manufacturer. | | Read the thread on oven temperature lower on the forum page. | | John Thorup | | | | | | | | | | | | | Danielm, | | Profiling is one of the most important part's of electronic's manufacturing. Like John above I can't imagin not knowing what's going on inside that oven. | Are you overheating the board / component's is it reflowing too long or not long enough, does my oven need maintained, these are a few of the thing's that you need to know to make good product never mind having an auditable process for customer's or quality std's. | | Ideally you should be profiling before you run a batch of card's so you are sure your ovan is A ok, a minimum of once a week at worst with a calibration pallet. | | There are 3 main system's that I've looked at Multicore's Oracle, Datapaq and Kic. They all have their good and bad point's. | The Kic system is being supplied by alot of oven manufacturer's built in and the dataloger can be used as a stand alone, it does not bad prediction stuff and give's a nice simple green or red light for a good and bad profile. | The multicore one is very impressive, it's very user friendly and models the oven's very well, it's prediction software is so good you almost don't have to go near the oven. It's got a system where you can drag the thermal curve to where you want it in term's of temperatures and it will give you the setting's to meet it. It's also smart enough to know that there are part's of the ovan that can't be adjusted like the zone edges and that your oven has a max temperature for each zone so after you model the oven it wont let you try and predict something your ovan can't do. | The down side is that the multicore stuff wont run on a network so you can't share file's as it uses an expert system design to run prediction's for settings. | The datapaq is nice n simple to use and it's prediction software is getting better all the time, it is networkable and does eveything you need the new 9000 series mole has load's of storage capacity and it can recharge while your downloading the data to the PC, they also have new software dure out soon. | | There's almost an article for the smt express in the profiler's I'd guess like a road test...mmmm I wonder.. | | Anyway's yes you need to profile and there are many of them on the market but you have to get the onbe that suit's you best and that's doen by talking to the vendor's and trying them all out. | | JohnW | Profiling is very important to monitor the boards. You must know whether or not you are negatively impacting the boards. The profile will help establish if you thermally shocking the components, overstressing the board material, overheating solder joints, etc. It is especially important on heavily populated boards and/or boards with BGA's. The KIC thermal profiler combined with their Prophet monitoring system is excellent. ECD also has good products for SMT and wave solder.

Brian

Brian

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