[sdiy] SMT in a toaster oven

[Oren Leavitt]

mark verbos wrote:
> I don't know why this message doesn't show up, sorry if you get it 4  
> times.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I just tried using a small convection toaster oven to reflow some SMT  
> parts.
> 
> Woah! It work perfectly.
> 
> This circuit board is about 6" x 8" and FILLED with discrete parts.  
> Soldering it by hand takes me about 20 hours of labor and looks like  
> shit. I stenciled solder paste on it and placed all the parts by hand  
> in about an hour and a half, reflowed it in 90 seconds. It looks like  a 
> machine did it. It's amazing. $60 black and decker toaster oven,  $100 
> stencil and $18 solder paste. I got the stencil done by advanced  
> circuits along with my $33 each PCB, but you can get them cheaper from  
> some other places. I used about 10% of that solder paste. I think I'll  
> buy a bigger container now that I know it works.
> 
> Do all of you SMT guys do this?
> 
> Mark


Nice!
I've yet to try this myself..
Sounds like the stencil/solder mask is the crucial step to making this work.
What is it you have on that 6" x 8" board?
Congrats,
- Oren