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A project log for ESP32 Reflow Oven

DIY oven for baking larger PCB boards

miroslav-zuzelkaMiroslav Zuzelka 12/24/2018 at 14:340 Comments

As I build reflow oven in the past, I roughly knew what I will looking for, but to be sure, I did small  research on the Internet. 

I looked on some similar projects here and on other places and I confirmed to myself that I will need some oven with infrared heaters. They heat up quite quickly which is key feature which I needed. Also I did not want to spend too much money with first buy, as I did´t know if the oven which I choosed will be the right one. 

I looked online what I can get cheap and fast to ship, as I had bit of time till Christmas. I was looking for some oven with at least 2 infrared heaters (top & bottom), inner space larger than 23 cm and good for hacking.  After while, i founded this beauty (image is property of Lidl-shop.cz) :  

. With 2 heaters at top & bottom, space for 26 cm pizza and price about 40 euro (cca $45) was the exact oven which I was looking for. There was no description about infrared heaters, but I saw some mentioning about it somewhere else, so I risk it and make order for it. I received oven in about 5 days and I tested it right away after receive it. I used multimeter with thermocouple, which I just put in the oven and closed the door. There was very small gap in the door, but nothing to worry about in first test. I knew, that heaters have to go up to 150°C in about (max) 90 seconds so if this will be ok, oven will be usable. I turn on top & bottom heaters, set up maximum temperature (230°C) and setup timer to 10 minutes. I did not keep record how fast oven heated up, but temperature rise up quickly enough to confirm that this oven can be used. I keep it on for while and I saw maximum temperature at about 270°C, so component which was reading temperature has a small offset. 

My choice was right and now is time to make something which will be controlling the heating elements :) .   

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