The thing that originally caused my browser to land on the Coulters Smithing website was my interest in Vapour Phase soldering. I was looking to assemble some boards that had TO220 components which needed to be soldered, where the back of the component is one of the connection points. That sold of thing is turning up more often, together with large components such as transformers sitting next to very small components. The disparity in thermal mass is a problem that VP is perfect for solving. I produce low volumes of boards, until they hit large enough numbers to outsource to a sub-contract assembly house. So I was looking for either a low cost VP machine, or a DIY solution. The search engine found the Coulters Smithing pages relating to VP and I decided to go the DIY route.
The current result was this machine:
It consists of a heated reservoir of the VP liquid which is insulated, and a carrier that is controlled by a PC. The carrier is lowered into the vapour at a variable speed, which allows the temperature profile to be adjusted, dwell times set and so on. There is more to be done - mainly around evaporative losses of the liquid, but so far it has pumped out more than a thousand boards, with pretty good results...
Regards,
David
