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The lid

A project log for vapsy

A tiny vapor phase reflow oven

christophChristoph 09/11/2015 at 11:563 Comments

As noted in the project description, I want a see through lid. So I took the glass (2 mm thick) from an old picture frame and cut two pieces about 60 x 90 mm:

Looking for a spacer I found silicone sheet (again 2 mm) and cut two spacer frames. Silicone has the positive side effect that it can be squeezed a little, so after placing it between the glass plates and giving it a gentle squeeze, the sandwich is held together by the vacuum between the parts:

You can actually lift it just by holding the upper plate. This was then sealed with silicone (this stuff is intended to seal stoves with, and can withstand 350 °C):

Cutting the glass was the hardest part of this.

As a finishing step the lid will get a frame made of U-shaped aluminium. The alumium has an inner width of 8.5 mm, so the 8 mm sandwich will fit nicely.

Discussions

jaromir.sukuba wrote 09/11/2015 at 12:07 point

Just curious - wouldn't be one glass plate enough? Why two?

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Christoph wrote 09/11/2015 at 12:19 point

I wanted the lid to thermally insulate as well - at least a bit. The options were
a) one thin glass plate (less thermal resistance),
b) one thick plate (hard to cut) or
c) two thin ones (better insulation that one thin plate, plus an air gap).

I also considered doing it in vacuum, but I first wanted to see how well I could do it this way.

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jaromir.sukuba wrote 09/11/2015 at 12:23 point

Oh yes, that makes sense, thanks.

I'm very curious how your project ends up. Looks great for now, thumbs up!

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