IR soldering station with your own hands. Homemade infrared soldering station

Attention! This article is for informational purposes only, and assembly is not recommended! In the same place, we download updated firmware versions for the station of the first version.

When repairing motherboards related to the replacement of BGA components, an infrared soldering station is indispensable! Chinese stations do not shine with quality, and high-quality IR soldering stations are not cheap. The way out is to assemble the soldering station yourself. The cost of components for assembling the station does not exceed 10 thousand rubles. Despite the cheapness, a home-made IR station has proven itself reliably in the repair of motherboards. The controller ensures accurate thermal profile compliance, which is an important factor when replacing BGA components.

Design description

The station consists of a control controller, lower heating, upper heater.

The controller is two-channel. A thermocouple or a platinum thermistor can be connected to the first channel. Only a thermocouple is connected to the second channel. 2 channels have automatic and manual operation. The automatic mode of operation maintains a temperature of 10-255 degrees through feedback from thermocouples or a platinum thermistor (in the first channel). In manual mode, the power in each channel can be adjusted from 0-99%. The controller memory contains 14 thermal profiles for BGA soldering. 7 for lead-containing solder and 7 for lead-free solder. Thermal profiles are listed below. If desired, they can be changed (the source is in the archive).

For lead-free solder, the maximum thermal profile temperature: - 8 thermal profile - 225C about, 9 - 230C about, 10 - 235C about, 11 - 240C about, 12 - 245C about, 13 - 250C about, 14 - 255C about

If the upper heater does not have time to warm up according to the thermal profile, then the controller pauses and waits until the desired temperature is reached. This is done in order to adapt the controller for weak heaters that warm up for a long time and do not keep up with the thermal profile.

The controller can also be used as a temperature controller, such as when drying or baking a soldermask (in an oven in which a thermocouple is placed), or in other cases where precise temperature control is required.

Schematic diagram of the controller

The following are photos of the controller. I used the power supply from a laptop, which I converted to a voltage of 12 volts. As a socket for thermocouples, I used a usb socket with pieces of textolite, which is soldered to the front panel, see the photo. Cooling is active, I used a heat pipe from laptop cooling. I soldered a copper plate to the thermotube with a hair dryer, on which elements for cooling will be installed. You can use the processor cooling from the system unit, but then the dimensions of the device will increase.

The lower heating is made of a halogen heater for 3 lamps with a total power of 1.2 kW. The base with a reflector and a protective grid is dismantled from the heater. I made the body for the lower heating from curved sheet metal (galvanized ridge), which I cut with metal scissors. Also, an aluminum threshold (joint) was added to the design, for the convenience of installing an aluminum channel on it. The motherboard is installed on the channel through the racks. The bottom heating can be connected to the controller. I acted in a different way so as not to bother with the second thermocouple - I built a 600 W dimmer into the lower heating, only I installed a larger radiator on the triac. With the adjustment of 1.2 kW, he does an excellent job. I remember the approximate position of the dimmer, at which the required temperature on the motherboard is stable. For small boards (for example, video cards), you can use clerical clothespins screwed to the DIN rail. An example in the photo.

A high-quality upper heater from improvised means, unfortunately, cannot be made. I experimented with halogen lamps, quartz tubes with spirals, and also experimented with an IR lamp. But the ceramic heater of the ELSTEIN company of the SHTS series (with gilding) has proven itself best of all. Similar heaters are used in expensive IR stations. I used ELSTEIN SHTS/100 800W and ELSTEIN SHTS/4 300W. Heaters heat very well, and practically do not shine. The IR spectrum is very suitable for replacing BGA components. I do not recommend heaters from China, even though they look like ELSTEIN.

Heat spot heater ELSTEIN SHTS/100 800W. The size of the heater is 96x96 mm. The distance between the heater and the board is 5cm.

Circle El1 diameter 4 cm (temperature difference 5 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle).

Circle El2 diameter 5 cm (temperature difference 10 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle).

Circle El3 diameter 6 cm (temperature difference 15 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle).

Heat spot heater ELSTEIN SHTS/4 300W. Heater size 60x60 mm. The distance between the heater and the board is 5cm.

Circle El1 diameter 2.5 cm (temperature difference 5 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle). Suitable for most chips.

Circle El2 diameter 3 cm (temperature difference 10 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle).

Circle El3 diameter 4.5 cm (temperature difference 15 degrees from the center to the edge of the circle).

As you can see, both heaters are suitable for replacing BGA components. But ELSTEIN SHTS/100 800W has an advantage over the second heater. This is a much larger uniform heat spot. A circle with a diameter of 4 cm in which the temperature difference is not more than 5C o. Practically the indicator is similar to that of Thermopro with a 3D reflector (which has a uniform square heat spot 4x4cm with a temperature difference of no more than 5C o)

Below are photos of the design of the upper heater and the bed, which I made from what was in the hardware store. The design turned out to be successful, it is adjustable in height and length, the heater rotates around its axis, it is easy to install it above any part of the board.

The thermocouple is attached to a tripod. It is easy to direct it to any part of the board. Photo design. I used a flexible metal sleeve from a USB flashlight from a store where everything is at the same price. In a metal sleeve, I inserted a thermocouple without external insulation with a wire.

Controller setup

To adjust the channel of the upper thermocouple, R3 is set to the middle position. We place the thermocouple of the controller and the thermocouple of the reference thermometer on a heated surface (for example, a halogen lamp, where both thermocouples are connected together and thermal paste is applied to them), and we calibrate the readings of the maximum temperature value of 250 degrees with resistor R6. Then we let the lamp cool down to room temperature and calibrate the lower temperature reading with resistor R3. This procedure must be repeated several times until the lower and maximum temperatures match the actual values. We repeat the same procedure with the channel of the lower thermocouple using resistors R11 and R14, respectively. Similarly, the first channel is calibrated when using a platinum thermistor with resistors R21 and R27, respectively. If you do not plan to use a platinum thermistor, then the U2 op-amp can be excluded from the circuit with all the wiring, and the 11 output of the microcontroller can be connected to + 5V.

Controlling the controller and changing parameters, as well as the process of removing and installing the chip, is shown in the video. I install the upper heater at a height of 5-6 cm from the surface of the board. If, at the time of the thermoprofile execution, the temperature deviates from the set value by more than 3 degrees, we lower the power of the upper heater. A run-out of several degrees at the end of the thermal profile (after turning off the upper heater) is not terrible. This affects the inertia of ceramics. Therefore, I choose the desired thermal profile 5 degrees less than I need. On this lower heating, the temperature is slightly different above the heater zone and in the shady zone (the difference is about 10-15 degrees). Therefore, it is advisable to install the board on the lower heater so that the chip is above the heater zone (but this is not critical). Before removing the chip with a probe, you need to make sure (by gently pressing on each corner of the chip) that the balls under the chip have floated. During installation, we use only high-quality flux, otherwise the wrong choice of flux can ruin everything. Also, when mounting the BGA chip, it is recommended to cover the crystal with a rectangle of aluminum foil with a side size equal to about ½ of the side of the BGA, in order to reduce the temperature in the center, which is always higher than the temperature near the thermocouple (see above photo of heat spots of ELSTEIN IR heaters).

The external fan is not activated by software, although it is indicated on the diagram. In the future, it is planned to make changes to the source code and use an external fan.

Below you can download the archive with the printed circuit board in LAY format, source code, firmware

List of radio elements

Designation	Type	Denomination	Quantity	Note	My notepad
E1	Encoder	EC11	1	With button	To notepad
U1, U2	Operational amplifier	LM358	2		To notepad
U3	Linear Regulator	LM7805	1	Installed on a radiator	To notepad
U4	MK PIC 8-bit	PIC16F876	1	PIC16F876A	To notepad
U5, U6	optocoupler	PC817	2		To notepad
LCD1	LCD display	WH2004A-YYH-CT	1	20x4 based on KS0066 (HD44780) with English-Russian dictionary	To notepad
Q1, Q2	MOSFET transistor	TK20A60U	2	2SK3568	To notepad
Q3, Q4, Q5	MOSFET transistor	IRLML0030	3	Or any N-Channel MOSFET	To notepad
Z1	Quartz	16 MHz	1		To notepad
VD1	rectifier diode	LL4148	1		To notepad
VD2, VD3	Diode bridge	KBU1010	2		To notepad
VD4, VD5	zener diode	24 V	2		To notepad
R1	Platinum thermistor	PT100	1		To notepad
R2, R10	Resistor	470 ohm	2		To notepad
R3, R11	Trimmer resistor	1 MΩ	2		To notepad
R4, R12	Resistor	1 MΩ	2		To notepad
R5, R13, R26	Resistor	1.5 kOhm	3		To notepad
R6, R14, R27	Trimmer resistor	100 kOhm	3	multi-turn	To notepad
R7, R15	Resistor	130 kOhm	2		To notepad
R8, R16, R29	Resistor	20 kOhm	3		To notepad
R9, R28	Resistor	100 ohm	2		To notepad
R17, R30	Resistor	10 kOhm	2		To notepad
R18, R19	Resistor	4.7 kOhm	2	1% tolerance or better	To notepad
R20	Resistor	51 ohm	1		To notepad
R21	Trimmer resistor	100 ohm	1	multi-turn	To notepad
R22, R23, R24, R24	Resistor	220 kOhm	4	1% tolerance or better	To notepad
R31	Trimmer resistor	10 kOhm	1	multi-turn	To notepad
R32	Resistor	16 ohm	1	Power 2W	To notepad
R33, R34, R36, R37	Resistor	47 kOhm	4	Power 1W	To notepad
R35, R38	Resistor	5.1 kOhm	2

Repair of laptops and video cards, reballing (dismantling and mounting of the chip with the restoration of solder balls), as a rule, cannot do without an infrared soldering station. Service centers either do not undertake such work, or charge quite a lot of money for such repairs. Meanwhile, such breakdowns are a fairly common occurrence.

A factory-made IR station is a rather expensive device, so it’s more economical to do it yourself. An infrared soldering station can be made in one, maximum two days, by pre-ordering via the Internet and receiving by mail the components for it.

A bit of theory

At normal temperatures, the peak of electromagnetic radiation occurs in the infrared region. Things that burn emit both more intense and more energetic (shorter) infrared radiation. When it gets very hot, they start glowing red. The hotter they get, the more orange and yellow, then blue.

Many organic molecules intensely absorb infrared radiation, which causes the object to heat up. Heat is the kinetic energy of the translational motion of atoms and molecules. The light emitted by an atom has a wavelength. As a result, a heated body also emits light, and the more heated the body, the shorter the wave of emitted light.

For information. According to Wien's displacement law, it happens that the thermal radiation of objects near room temperature is in the infrared region. This includes light bulbs and even people.

So infrared radiation is not heat, and it does not (directly) cause heat. It is emitted by the heat of an object over a certain range of temperatures.

The visual shades of light are determined by the wavelength and its direction, starting with infrared, then red, orange, yellow .... violet to ultraviolet wavelengths. And back too. Irradiation of the body with light causes an increase in the movement of its molecules, any light, but infrared, as the longest wavelength, is most effective.

An IR soldering station with your own hands is an infrared heater that gives off heat to the environment through infrared radiation.

DIY infrared soldering station

bottom heating

The heating case can be made from an old Soviet suitcase made of aluminum, or from a computer system unit. But the suitcase will fit better, because its working position is horizontal. As a last resort, you can look for a similar case at the nearest flea market.

In the case, it is necessary to cut a hole for ceramic heaters with a grinder. From an aluminum cutout, make a substrate for heaters with legs from ordinary bolts and nuts. On the substrate, the whole structure will hold.

The bottom heater consists of four ceramic heaters purchased from AliExpress. The price is reasonable, the seller provides fast delivery.

Each heater (dimensions: length - 24 cm, width - 6 cm) has a power of 600 watts. Four heaters make up a heating panel 24x24 cm2. This is enough to heat up a computer motherboard, not to mention a laptop motherboard, which is even smaller. Even large top-end video cards are placed on such heating. For comparison, a standard factory Chinese station has such heating with an area of 150x150 cm2, while it is not cheap.

From the bottom of the lower heating, each heater is connected to a terminal block, preferably of Soviet production. The block is made of a special material that does not melt at high temperatures. Connecting heaters in series-parallel:

the first and third are connected in series;
the second and fourth are also sequential;
the first and third with the second and fourth - in parallel.

This scheme is used in order to slightly unload the wiring. If all heaters are connected in parallel, then the total load will be 2850 W:

bottom heating - 600x4 \u003d 2400 W;
upper heater at maximum load - 450 W.

If electrical engineering is still working in the room (several light bulbs, a computer, a soldering iron, a kettle), then a 16 amp circuit breaker will knock out.

The series load resistance is calculated using a special formula. As a result, the bottom heating is a load of 1210 watts. It is easy to calculate that the entire IR station will consume 1660 watts. For such equipment, this is not much. In time, the board is heated by the lower heating to 100 0 for about 10 minutes.

From above, when work is being done, a metal grill from the refrigerator can be placed on the body with a heater. But it is better to use glass ceramics according to the size of the case, and make a convenient heating table for repairing the board.

Top heating

Top heating can be done from the Soviet photo enlarger UPA-60. The model is suitable for homemade soldering station. The 80x8 cm ceramic heater is ideally attached to the photo enlarger. In this case, you can adjust the height of the heater and the engine in any direction. It is convenient to attach a tripod to the table itself, and move the bottom heating if necessary. The heaters are large enough to heat up large chips and sockets for processor sockets.

All used parts can be bought online through the bulletin board, ceramic heater - on AliExpress.

Control block

A ready-made plastic box can be purchased at a special store for self-manufacturing electronics, or you can make a case from a regular computer power supply. The control panel contains:

switches for lower and upper heating;
dimmer 2 kW.

It should be noted that there are quite a lot of internal wires in the case, so you need to choose a rather big box.

Holes for the output of controls on the front panel are cut with an electric jigsaw with a special nail file for metal. Usually this does not cause difficulties if you have practice with such a tool.

PID controller REX-C100 can also be ordered from AliExpress. Complete with it, the seller supplies a solid state relay and a thermocouple. That is, the controller reads what temperature the ceramic heater reaches. Until the temperature reaches the desired value, the solid state relay is in the open state and passes an electric current to the ceramic heater.

When the device reaches the required temperature, the solid state relay is activated and turns off the current supply to the ceramic heater. The dimmer is manually controlled. Usually it is set to the maximum so that the top heats up faster.

Tester

This device is needed to work in order to read information about the temperature that is near the chip. An ordinary thermocouple is connected to it, the end of which is placed near the chip. The tester will display the temperature directly next to the chip.

Important! The wire from the thermocouple is wrapped with heat-resistant tape, because the braid of the wires burns at high temperatures.

As a result, a home-made IR soldering station assembled in haste will be about ten times cheaper than the finished product. The device can be modified and gradually improved.

Work in practice

The operation of the device will be described using the example of repairing a board from a laptop. One of the malfunctions of the board is the breakdown of the video chip. It is enough to warm it up with a hot air gun, and the image appears on the screen. Most likely, in this case, the crystal falls off the textolite. Changing the chip is quite expensive. But if you warm it up, then the life of the laptop can be extended. On the example of such a banal warm-up, a home-made infrared soldering station can be used.

To begin with, the board is prepared for warming up, the parts are removed:

films, because they begin to melt at high temperatures;
CPU;
memory.

It is better to remove the compound with tweezers after preheating with a hot air gun. The hair dryer is set at the same time at a temperature of 1800, the average air flow.

Important! The entire surrounding area around the chip must be covered with foil so as not to heat the elements of the board. Just in case, you should also cover the plastic memory slots.

For information. The use of fluxes facilitates the soldering process and prevents oxidation of the metal of the soldered elements.

The board in this form is installed on the lower heating grate of the soldering station. A thermocouple is placed near the chip. Another thermocouple is located close to the heaters, its task is to read the temperature of their heating. Turn on the bottom heating on the control unit. Operating parameters appear on the tester and PID controller.

When the bottom warms up, you need to wait until the temperature around the chip is at least 1000, depending on the material of the solder. If the solder is lead-free, then it is desirable to warm up to 1100.

The distance between the chip and the top heater should be about 5 cm. The center of the chip should be exactly under the center of the top heater, because the maximum temperature goes from the center to the sides. The upper heater is turned on when the temperature near the chip rises to 1100. The bottom usually warms up for 10 minutes, then the top turns on, which should heat up to 2300. On the PID controller, the upper value indicates the current temperature, the lower value indicates the temperature to be reached.

When the desired temperature is reached, the upper heater is turned on, which is controlled by a dimmer. When the temperature gets closer to 2300, the power of the dimmer should be reduced. This is done so that the heating is not too fast. It is recommended to keep a minute at a temperature of 2300 and then turn off the device. The temperature will drop.

Sooner or later, a radio mechanic involved in the repair of modern electronic equipment faces the question of buying an infrared soldering station. The need is ripe due to the fact that modern elements massively “throw back their hooves” in short, manufacturers of both small things and large integrated circuits refuse flexible conclusions in favor of patches. This process has been going on for quite a long time.

Such chip packages are called BGA - Ball grid array, in other words - an array of balls. Such microcircuits are mounted and dismantled by a non-contact soldering method.

Previously, for not very large microcircuits, it was possible to get by with a hot air soldering station. But large GPU graphic controllers can no longer be removed and planted with hot air. Unless to warm up, but warming up does not give a long-term result.
In general, closer to the topic .. Ready-made professional infrared stations have exorbitant prices, and inexpensive 1000 - 2000 green ones have insufficient functionality, in short, you still have to finish it. Personally, for me, an infrared soldering station is the tool that you can assemble yourself and fit your needs. Yes, I do not argue, there are time costs. But if you approach the assembly of the IR station methodically, then there will be both the necessary result and creative satisfaction. So, I have outlined for myself that I will work with boards sized 250x250 mm. For soldering television Main and computer video adapters, possibly tablet PCs.

So, I started with an unclean sheet and a door from the old mezzanine, screwing 4 legs from an ancient typewriter to this future base.

The base, with the help of approximate calculations, turned out to be 400x390 mm. Next, it was necessary to roughly calculate the layout based on the dimensions of the heaters and PID controllers. In such a simple “felt pen” way, I determined the height of my future infrared soldering station and the bevel angle of the front panel:

Now let's move on to the skeleton. Everything is simple here - we bend aluminum corners according to the design of our future soldering station, fix it, bind it. We go to the garage and dig headlong into cases from DVDs and VCRs. I do well that I do not throw it away - I know that they will come in handy. Look, I’ll build a house out of them :) They build it out of beer cans, corks and even ice cream sticks!

In short, you can’t imagine better for lining than equipment covers. Sheet metal is not cheap.

We run to the shops in search of a non-stick baking sheet. The baking sheet must be selected according to the size of the IR emitters and their number. I went shopping with a small tape measure and measured the sides of the bottom and the depth. To questions from sellers like - “Why do you need pies of strictly specified sizes?” I answered that the inappropriate size of the pie violated the overall harmony of perception, which did not correspond to my moral and ethical principles.

Hooray! The first parcel, and in it are especially important spare parts: PIDs (what a terrible word) The decoding is also not simple: Proportional-Integral-Differential controller. In general, we deal with their configuration and operation.

Next is the tin. Here we just had to sweat with covers from DVD-yuks so that everything turned out smoothly and solidly, we do it for ourselves. After fitting all the walls, it is necessary to cut the necessary holes for the FIDs on the front, for the cooler on the back wall and for painting - to the garage. As a result, the intermediate version of our IR soldering station began to look like this:

After testing the REX C-100 preheat regulator (bottom heater) it turned out that it was not quite suitable for my soldering station design, because it was not designed to work with solid state relays, which it should control. I had to modify it to fit my concept.

Hooray! A package arrived from China. Now it already had the most basic wealth for building our infrared soldering station. Namely, these are 3 lower IR emitters 60x240 mm, the upper 80x80 mm. and a pair of 40A solid-state relays It was possible to take 25 amperes, but I always try to do everything with a margin, and they didn’t differ much in price ..

The eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing. I try not to forget this old truth, as well as about the chicken, the one that is grain by grain ... What we have as a result - After installing the emitters in a baking sheet, installing solid state on a radiator blown by a cooler and connecting everything, it turned out to be something more or less similar to infrared soldering station.

When the preheating work began to come to an end and the first tests on heating, temperature holding and hysteresis were made, it was possible to safely proceed to the upper infrared emitter. It turned out to be more work with him than I originally expected. Several constructive solutions were considered, but the last option turned out to be more successful in practice, which I implemented.

Making a table to hold the board is another task that requires heating the cranium. It is necessary that several conditions are met - uniform retention of the printed circuit board so that the board does not bend when heated. In addition, it was possible to shift the already clamped board to the left and right. The board clamp should be both strong and give a little slack, since the board expands when heated. Well, the table should also be able to fix boards of different sizes. Not yet fully completed table: (no clothespins for the board)

So the time has come for tests, debugging, fitting thermal profiles for different types of microcircuits, and soldering alloys. During the fall of 2014, a decent number of computer graphics cards and television Main-boards were restored.

Despite the fact that the soldering station seems to be complete and has proven itself well, in fact, a few more important things are missing: Firstly, it is a lamp, well, or a flashlight on a flexible leg, Secondly, blowing the board after soldering, thirdly, I I originally wanted to make a selector for the lower heaters ..

Of course, I didn’t write everything I wanted, because there were a lot of little things, problems and dead ends during the assembly. But on the other hand, I recorded the entire design process on video and now this is a full-fledged training video course:

The continuous improvement of soldering technology is due to the emergence of more complex electronics printed circuit boards. The infrared soldering station (IPS) is designed to work with a new generation of sensitive microcircuits and other radio components. An unusual approach to soldering is based on the use of a light beam in the infrared range as a carrier of thermal energy.

Features and Benefits

A feature of the IR soldering station is that, unlike an induction device, there is no material contact with the radio component in operation, compared to a hair dryer, there is no air flow pressure. The entire soldering process takes place completely in a non-contact mode.

The advantages of IPS include the following:

unlike other designs, an infrared soldering iron provides quick installation or, conversely, desoldering under conditions of full control of the heating level of the radio component being processed;
a focused beam of infrared radiation allows you to point the thermal energy flow to the right place on the board;
IPS makes it possible to set the mode of stepwise increase in the heating temperature in the working area;
infrared soldering reliably restores the broken connection of the microcircuit pad with the printed circuit board;
the absence of solder and flux in the operation of the station allows you to keep the workplace clean and not clog the board with tin drops and additive crystals.

Types of IPS

According to the type of infrared emitter, two types of IPS are distinguished:

Ceramic;
Quartz.

Ceramic

An example of a ceramic infrared soldering station is the Achi ir6000 model. The station has a lot of advantages. It has established itself as a reliable, durable and durable equipment. The working temperature in the soldering zone is reached within 10 minutes. In stations of this type, a solid flat or hollow ceramic emitter is used.

Quartz

Unlike a ceramic soldering iron, the quartz station reaches maximum heat in 30 seconds. Quartz stations are very sensitive to frequent on-off cycles.

Attention! If the specifics of the soldering mode require several shutdowns of the equipment within a short period, then it is better to use a ceramic soldering station.

Operating principle

To understand the operation of an infrared soldering station, one must understand the principle of connecting a microprocessor to a printed circuit board. Microcircuits of laptops and various electronic devices do not have pins. Instead, they have a grid of contact points on their backs. The same grating is on the printed circuit board.

On both surfaces, the contacts are covered with fusible balls. During soldering, the microprocessor is heated by an infrared emitter to the melting temperature of the solder. At the same time, the lower surface of the board is heated by the heaters of the station's lower platform. By heating the contact connections on both sides, a quick soldering of the radio component is achieved. Due to the narrowly directed heat flow, the high temperature does not have time to spread to other components of the board.

Important! With the help of the software, the station can implement different temperature levels at certain time intervals.

Description of the IR soldering process

The infrared soldering process consists of several phases:

The printed circuit board is placed on the station platform.
It is fixed with side stops and additional rails.
Around the mounting area, the plastic elements are covered with adhesive foil.
An infrared emitter is installed at a height of 3-4 cm from the microcircuit.
A thermocouple on a flexible tube is brought directly to the place of soldering.
Using the buttons on the interfaces of the thermocontrollers, the operating modes of the upper and lower heaters are set.
A lamp on a steel flexible cord is brought to the place of soldering.
Turn on the station by pressing the start button.
After the specified time has elapsed, the microprocessor is removed from the board using tweezers.
In the same way, only in reverse order, a new microprocessor is mounted.

Design features

An infrared soldering station is a fairly large piece of equipment:

width - 450-475 mm;
height - 430-450 mm;
depth - 420-450 mm.
the height of the supporting support of the IR emitter is 200 mm.

Additional Information. The dimensions of different models of stations may differ slightly from the above data. The desktop area is designed for printed circuit boards of the maximum size and any configuration.

Location of controls and moving parts of the IR station:

The desktop is a deep platform from a row of heating elements, covered with a metal mesh.
Parallel stops with locks move along the guides. They clamp the printing platform on both sides.
The transverse boards are equipped with screw supports that support the board at the desired height.
The kit includes rails that additionally secure the board.
A rotary mechanism is installed on a vertical support, on which an infrared heater is fixed.
The IR emitter can move in a straight line along the tripod rails. At the same time, the soldering iron can rotate around the vertical support.
On the front panel of the equipment are:

power button;
connector for thermocouple;
stop button;
desktop fan switch;
backlight switch;
top cooling button;
thermal controller of lower heaters;
programmable top IR heater controller.

The temperature of the upper IR heater can reach from 220 to 270 degrees. The lower platform warms up to 150-1700 C.

DIY manufacturing

The high cost of an IR soldering station (60-150 thousand rubles) encourages home craftsmen to manufacture such equipment on their own. With some experience, it is quite possible to make a homemade infrared soldering iron with your own hands. Material costs usually do not exceed 10 thousand rubles. It is necessary to prepare the materials and components necessary for the assembly of the IR station.

Details for a homemade device

To assemble an infrared soldering station with your own hands, you will need the following:

tin sheet;
flexible spiral metal lamp tube;
lever tripod from an old table lamp;
halogen lamps;
galvanized fine mesh;
aluminum profile in the form of narrow rails;
2 thermocouples;
Arduino Mega 2560 R3 board;
SSR 25-DA2x board Adafruit MAX31855K - 2 pcs.;
DC adapter 5 volts, 0.5 A;
wires.

Assembly

Installation of a soldering station consists of several stages:

Thermotable;
infrared heater;
PID controller on Arduino.

Thermotable

It is advisable to make a thermostatic table with your own hands in an equipped home workshop. The design is a lower heater, consisting of the following components:

housing, reflector, lamps;
board fixing system;
flexible thermocouple tube;
lamp.

Frame

The basis of the thermotable is made in the form of a frame from an L-shaped tin profile. You can bend the strips of metal with a corner. Cutouts are made with scissors and the metal is bent along them, connecting the parts with self-tapping screws.
The opening is covered with a metal mesh. So that it does not bend, metal bars are pulled over the grid in the transverse and longitudinal directions.

The old halogen lamp is dismantled, freeing the reflector from the lamps. It is cut along the inner perimeter of the body.
Lamps are returned. The heater is inserted into the support frame from below.

Board fixing system

The aluminum rail is cut into several pieces. Mounting holes are drilled in them.

Two sections of the profile are fixed on the wide sides of the body, in the grooves of which the screw clamps of the transverse rails will move. Everything will become clear from the bottom photo.

Flexible thermocouple tube

A spiral metal tube is installed in one of the corners of the frame, thermocouple wires are pulled through. The length of the tube must provide access for the thermocouple to the entire working area of the station.

Lamp

A cartridge with a five-volt light bulb with a reflector is fixed at the end of the flexible tube. The base of the metal hose is attached to the corner of the frame in the same way as in the previous case.

Top heater

The infrared emitter consists of two elements, these are:

Ceramic plate in the case.
Holder.

Ceramic plate in case

The plate can be purchased on the electrical market or ordered on the website of the online store. The main thing is to make a durable case in which a free flow of air would be provided. How to do this, you can see in the photo.

Additional Information. A computer cooler mounted in the upper plane of the IR plate housing will help protect the radio component from overheating.

Holder

The two-piece table lamp bracket is ideal for the holder. The base of the bracket is attached to the frame of the station. The upper swivel joint is connected to the body of the upper heater.

PID controller on Arduino

A do-it-yourself IR station is necessarily equipped with a control unit. For him, you need to make a separate case. An Arduino board and a PID controller are placed inside. An approximate diagram of the layout of the parts of the station control unit is visible in the photo.

The Arduino Mega 2560 R3 microprocessor platform controls the heating modes of the ceramic IR emitter and the thermal table platform. The wires of the fans (upper and lower), the PID controller, thermocouples and the lamp are connected to the Arduino board.

The soldering station is programmed through the controller interface. Its screen reflects the current heating process of the PCB on both sides.

Tester

Thermocouples act as a tester. They are ultimately sources of information about the state of the heating level of the back side of the printed circuit board and the top surface of the microprocessor.

Work in practice

Before starting work, it is important to correctly set up the IR soldering station.

Setting

After fixing the printed circuit board on the thermal table and bringing the IR emitter to the microprocessor, they proceed to setting up the station. This is done using the keys of the interfaces of the thermal controllers of the upper and lower heaters.

The display of the lower heating controller shows the current temperature at the top. The buttons on the bottom line set the final value of the degree of heating of the printed circuit board.

The programmable top heating controller has 10 options (thermal profiles). The thermal profile reflects the dependence of temperature on time. That is, heating can be programmed in steps. Each step sets a certain time during which the temperature does not change.

Difficulty at work

Mass-produced infrared soldering stations are easy to operate and easy to understand. Difficulties in the operation of the station may arise due to a discrepancy between the actual characteristics of the station and the data in the accompanying documentation. The equipment manufacturer is responsible for this under warranty.

For people involved in the repair of modern electronic devices at home, a homemade infrared soldering station is the first necessity. It makes sense to purchase professional equipment for workshops where there are large volumes of repair work.

Video

In the workshop of any radio amateur there is one, and maybe several soldering irons at once. But a soldering station, especially an infrared one, is just a dream for many.

The fact is that this is professional equipment used for high-quality soldering of such complex elements as BGA chips (from the English abbreviation Ball grid array, which in translation can sound like "Array of balls", the full Russian analogue is "surface-mounted integrated circuits" ).

To make it clearer - picture.

Rice. 1. BGA chip example

It is impossible to solder or even unsolder such a chip with a conventional soldering iron. With a certain degree of probability, a soldering dryer can help, but only for soldering and only if the microcircuit can then be thrown away ...

The fact is that in this case it is required:

1. Heating from two sides at once;

2. Uniform penetration of heat through the body of the microcircuit (this makes infrared radiation possible);

3. Accurate temperature control during work.

And all this is directly related to the complex logic of the device and expensive heaters and sensors.

This is probably why ready-made IR soldering stations cost from 30 thousand rubles. (even when ordering from China).

Even if you collect all the necessary parts for the IR station, their total cost will be slightly lower than the finished version. So, if you have a limited budget, the material below is for you.

On the forums, such a device was affectionately nicknamed the "prikuyalnik", as it is a soldering iron with a cigarette lighter instead of a sting.

It looks like this:

Rice. 2. Infrared soldering station from the cigarette lighter

In fact, the soldering iron is used rather simply as a holder (there is no longer a heating element inside, the decoupling of copper and steel is made on purpose).

The heater control circuit is based on simple and inexpensive elements. She looks like this.

Rice. 3. Heater control circuit

If there is no 555 timer at hand, you can take the UC384x series. Then the diagram will look like this.

+ 12V power supply can be made from a transformer and a diode bridge (the most elementary, diodes are best mounted on a radiator).

As you can see from the diagram, there is no temperature control.

With so many elements, you can do without a printed circuit board. A breadboard model will do just fine, and with a certain skill and the presence of free space in the case, mounting on weight is suitable.

Rice. 5. Mounting the board

The bottom heat must provide the correct thermal profile for the solder. Graphs for lead-containing and lead-free solders are shown below.

Rice. 6. Graphs for lead-containing and lead-free solders

Of course, regulating the temperature and maintaining it at a given level is a difficult task (normally, a thermocouple is required, the logic for processing data from it, etc.).

But let's make a simple move - we will regulate the heating with a conventional dimer (from lighting devices), and as a heat source we use a ready-made 150 W halogen lamp.

The temperature can be set by an external thermometer, or "by eye" (experimentally).

Rice. 7. Bottom heater option

Here, an old printed circuit board with copper foil is used as a platform (turned up with a clean textolite).

So as an end result:

1. Heating from below is carried out by a halogen lamp connected to a 220V network. Its power is regulated by a dimer.

2. Soldering is carried out using a cigarette lighter. Its heating power is regulated by a variable resistor (see diagram).

The process looks like this.

Rice. 8. Soldering process

Of course, for conventional microcircuits, soldering can be carried out without bottom heating.

You can work only with the lower platform (for example, if you need to dismantle a large number of radio elements at once), but special care should be taken, since if the tracks are excessively overheated, they can peel off the textolite.

Such a soldering station is suitable only for short-term work in everyday life.

Other Implementations

On the net you can find many other variations on the theme of creating an IR station with your own hands, but they all have a budget of 10 thousand rubles +, which nullifies all efforts.

That is, if we take into account the possibility of an error during the installation process (due to negligence or inexperience) or the delivery of a low-quality part (which often happens when interacting with foreign sellers), as well as other nuances, it is easier and more reliable to purchase a ready-made solution.

Publication date: 23.02.2018

Readers' opinions

Yuri / 10/31/2018 - 11:26
Try to put a controller like IR101 http://tehnostation.ru/kontroller/ or IR102 from this station and you will get a full-fledged soldering station with adjustable profiles.