Vlog #55: The T-962C surface mount reflow oven 

Glad to have you back!

Glad to see a new video show up!!

Had one of these for about 18months. I raised mine an inch higher on the desk as heat evacuates out bottom. You really need to preheat unit before a run. I profiled mine with high temp Ag lead free, had 18C variation across tray. My timer counts 1.5secs, not secs. Needs to be running higher than 15C ambient temp for high temp reflow, it struggles if cold morning to make gradients of profiles if ambient is cold. Once you get used to weird controls, its Ok. We do a lot of low temp bismuth solder which it does extremely well. High temp lead free is ok but make sure its got copper balancing on breakoffs or they may smoke. Last note....fan seems clever, done lots of double sided and even with heavy devices, they dont seem to fall off. Note, I also tend to use a metal tray instead of the wire grill when doing double sided second side.

I have had one of these machines for a several years and had a major issue. That white plastic fuse holder mounted to the back panel of the upper control box caught on fire due to heat from a high impedance connection with the fuse. It appears to be made of ABS plastic or some other sub standard material and was actually on fire as I could see the glow through the vent. Non self extinguishing material. I put it out with a can of freeze spray through the vent. I caught it in time and was able to repair the damage but if they still use that type I highly suggest replacing it with a more robust type. Also I found their primary wiring was not sufficient to handle the current and temperatures. I replaced it with proper high temperature wiring and fuse holder and it has been good ever since. As it is aging however I find the heat across the pcb's is getting inconsistent. probably getting hot/cold spots. We use it one day a week for half a day. Its now 5 years old, so figure its life span from that. I am not upset because it is a very reasonably priced tool, but my convection toaster over is far more consistent and even heating.

Welcome back! Was wondering where you went

Nice timing! I was just looking at these last night :) Great overview. Will be nice to see how it pans out long term and if you need to use the aftermarket firmware or not. Cheers. Eric

What solder paste you using, boards came out nice! did you have to fix any?

It's REALLY worth upgrading trhe firmware on these ovens, and adding a proper temperature sensor to the control unit so that the ramp up/down is more accurate. I have the smaller model, and it's been excellent with the modified firmware.

Hi What is yours experience with that reflow oven ?

Good advertising. Thanks a lot.

Would it be possible to view some more internal details like number of heaters, type/model/specs of IR heater, MCU details, SSR power rating, etc,

Glad to see you back with this video. I've been using the toaster oven for quite a while now too, I also have the little brother to your T-962C at work with some custom firmware on. Out of interest, seems like a pretty nifty PnP machine you have next to the reflow. Is it a DIY kit??

how do you connect the power cord to? can it be plug directly to 120 Volts or 110 Volts outlet from home or work?

Hey mate, looking at getting one of these and am also in Australia, so I wanted to ask: do you need a special wall socket to run these? On some ebay listings it says "need 20A current" and I'm not sure therefore if you can run it on a normal plug :P Edit: I think the listings may be a typo referring to the required current in the US system, but still would be nice to know if you had any problems using it with a normal AU household wall outlet

I have the 110/120v, I had a 30amp wall mount installed for this unit cus its supposed to draw about 26amps so after changing the plug to a three prong 30 amp I tested and it works fine, my only question is that the power cord gets some what warm/hot while running and then cools down as the system goes through it's drop cycle, is this normal or am I doing something wrong?? Luck to all

Great video! What is that big black equipment on the left with the emergecy switch...your pnp machine?

Nice, more trick bits for the freetronics store I hope ;)

Hi have you got any problem with this "C" model until now?

You have had this machine for 4 years now. What are your thoughts after having used it a lot? Would you still recommend this machine? Have you looked at the other machines like ZB5040HL? do you have any thoughts about the differences between the two?

Is that a laser cutter in the background? Please do a video on it if it is!

That case is powder coated and they could have masked off the screw holes to maintain bare metal and allow for better ground conductivity across the entire chassis

My experience was not good. First boards were lead free, glossy blue soldermask. I used profile #3. Start at 25C. My board had SMT dip switches and an assortment of 6mm and 10mm SMT aluminum electrolytic caps. At 5 minutes smoke began to exit drawer. 6mm caps had exploded. 10mm had top swelling. Dip switches melted. SMT 1206 LEDs all warped and discolored. Obviously got too hot. IR seems to be very sensitive to the substrate emissivity. Next I tried 12x8cm copper bare pcb with printed leadfree paste. Attached thermocouple. Ran #3 again. No reflow on the paste. Max temp seemed to be in the low 200's on my thermocouple. Going to have to sort this one out. Needs better temp input and some internal air movement would help even out the IR/emissivity issue ... I hope.

I got one of these and it produces an extremely strong and terrible smell. I have heard that for the T-962A, the smell can be fixed by replacing some tape on the inside with some Kapton tape, but for the T-962C, I have not been able to locate such a troublesome tape. Do you have this problem, and have you in that case found a solution for it?

Could somebody that owns this oven know if the IR tubes in this oven form a bow, or they are straight line? I've bought one used and can't be sure what is a mod and what was there already. Thanks!

many peoples said this was not good cause of the IR heater i'm glad to see your video that change my mind and will save me some €€€€€€, can you make video how you solder both bcb sides ?

I made one myself with a arduino and a normal oven with a fan, cheap and very good, reflowed a number of ps3 systems with it 😀

Hi Jonathan, I would love to know how you built you DIY oven reflow. I noticed you had an arduino shield. I tried looking for similar shields but could not buy them mostly because they were not in production any more. It would nice of you to sell your reflow rig to me if possible. PM me if possible.

@SuperHouseTV what did you end up doing about fume extraction?

I'd have expected it to have some of those threaded feet like a washing machine for levelling. Yours won't be the only slightly wonky workbench out there.

Seems much more expensive than the T962. Worth the extra money?

I just purchased the T-962C after seeing your review! My oven has a hard time following the temperature curve. It is constantly about ~10 degrees off. Have you encountered this?

time to hack it to remove some of the annoyances ?

Hello sir, Can you please suggest me a low cost smt pick and place machin available.

The monster of her little sister T-962

650 AU = about 465 USD

hah this just popped up in my home page

Hi Jonathan. Just wanted to say great video, but your camera is very annoying in constantly refocusing and sometimes you are not even in focus but the stuff behind you is. Might be a good idea to invest in a new camera too. Nice reflow oven though!

When I put my hand on a stone on a sunny day, it is not cold at all. Can you define "stone cold" please?

Unless its GFCI, the breaker isn't saving you.