New Year, New Oven

Today we said goodbye to our Conceptronic Concept 60 Reflow Oven. This was the first convection reflow oven we bought, and it has given us 10 years good service.  It is still in good working order, but the spares are getting harder to find. It is also uses a lot of electricity. So, unfortunately its probable fate is to be broken up for scrap.

The replacement is our third Heller 1707 Mk3 Convection Reflow Oven. This will consume 7.5 kw of power compared with the Concept 60’s hungry 24 kw. So we will run three Heller reflows using the same power as just one obsolete machine. That will yield a 7.5% saving in our overall power consumption.

At the same time, we are retro-fitting an extra cooling zone to all three Heller ovens.  Many electronic designs are incorporating large BGA devices with a high thermal mass, and these benefit from additional cooling after reflow. This gives a smaller crystal structure to the solder and a more reliable electronic assembly.

To stay up to speed in the electronic assembly business, it is necessary to constantly upgrade and replace machinery.