> By any chance, did you price any options for assembly of the smd components? > What method do you use to bake your own?
I just assemble the boards myself, on the cheap, so I don't have any pricing for assembly. What I do is: * order the boards from iteadstudio, * clean the board with isopropyl alcohol, * apply solder paste from a syringe, using a needle, * place components using tweezers, * dump the whole thing into a cheap mini-oven, * press the button on my MSP430 Launchpad. The Launchpad board controls an SSR which PWMs power to the oven (just 4 times a second). It also has a tiny board connected to it, hosting a MAX31855 thermocouple interface. The thermocouple gets inserted into the oven, and my software does the PID control. It was just a quick hack. This contraption reflows boards surprisingly well (see here for the curve I normally get:http://jan.rychter.com/enblog/home-made-reflow-oven-for-smd). The only issue is with solder paste application: it takes time and effort, and I usually end up applying too much. I recently ordered some stencils from OSH Stencils, we'll see how that goes. The photos show varied results, you might notice some components are slightly shifted, and there is some flux residue. This is mostly because of the "too much paste" problem: I ended up reworking the main chips using a hot air station. Still, overall, the process works so well that I have no fear of SMD and in fact I prefer it to pulling wires through holes. --J. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/21D38F37-861F-4FEA-A612-A72D5933B22B%40gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
