St,
The roller was made by a company that specialize in this You give them the
steel rod and tell them what diameter you want.
I don't know if it is the same as the rubber used in printer rollers. This
mob make a mould and mix the components and pour it into the mould.
They put the roller into a lathe and turn the oversize rubber down to size.
So long as the rubber can withstand the temperature it should be ok.
The steel roller is machined to have a smooth surface.
The machine is about ten years old. Recently the roller started to pit and
I had to refurbish it.
I removed the roller and placed it in the lathe. I turned about a
millimeter off the surface until it was back to bear metal. The roller was
put back in the machine and the solder heated. Flux was floated on the
surface and the roller rotated for about ten minutes. By this time the
solder had evenly coated the roller and we were back in business.
The main drawback of the whole process is the flux used to allow the solder
to coat the roller. It is very corrosive but essential.
When the machine was first built the people who built it could not get it
to work and gave it to me. They were using 100% tin instead of solder and
could not find a suitable flux.
I got it going by replacing the tin with normal solder and the current flux.
Over the years we have tinned hundreds of boards with few problems.
As I said above corrosion is the main problem. I have replaced the bearings
twice, the solder tank once and skimmed the roller.
David
At 12:35 AM 20/01/2004, you wrote:
>On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 05:32:12 +1000, David Hopkins <davhop@...>
>wrote:
>
> > It was hand made.
> > However a machine shop was available.
> >
> > David
>
>where did you get the silicone roller?
>do you think the one from a laser printer / copier fuser would work?
>
>the surface of the steel roll, is it polished or rough?
>
>thanks
>
>st
>
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