Homebrew PCBs

"James" <jamesrsweet@...> writes:
> You could attach a thermistor to the hot plate and build a simple
> temperature control circuit to keep the temperature FAR more stable
> than the controls, if any, that are built in.

I've thought of that, but mine is cast iron - it has way too much
thermal mass to be accurately controlled *at all*.  It takes about
three minutes to get up to temperature, and the ramp-up is pretty good
for reflow soldering, so as long as I don't mess with it it works for
one board at a time, or multiple boards simultaneously, just not for
multiple boards consecutively.

If I'm going to start hacking up an mcu-controlled reflow device, I
won't start with a cast iron hotplate.