On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 10:47 AM, joem joem@martindale-electric.co.uk wrote:
yes i got the T862A, the one with an 800W pre-heater and a 200W overhead lamp, i can actually see what's going on, keep an eye on the solder as it melts and poke things with a stick if necessary.
I don't dispute the benefits of a T862A, but get oven, destroy a few boards until you got it timed to working 100%, and then its a doddle to plant components, press go, and get working board with near 100% reliability.
for this (first) board i need a slightly different approach, which the T862A suits better. i need to go carefully and slowly, populating only a few components at a time, testing them, inspecting the board, making sure there's no short-circuits (some of the components are 0402), verifying that the circuit is functional by applying power, and correcting it there and then if necessary.
if i were to populate the entire board with components, there would be absolutely no way that i could test individual circuits or components. in some places for example resistors don't measure their actual value because of other components on the board.
i made one mistake by putting in the 3.3v regulator *and* the MOSFETs for the LCD digital circuit. the 3.3v regulator circuit was fine, but the LCD digital 3.3v supply circuit wasn't. so i dismantled pretty much the entire 3.3v regulator circuit, had to cut PCB power line tracks, and generally messed up the board, taking over 2 hours to track down what was wrong.
if i had put down only the 3.3v regulator and then tested that, i wouldn't have had to remove any of its components.
now multiply that scenario up for an entire board and it's easy to work out why i'm doing this a bit at a time.
so i'm using the T862A as a PCB development tool, not a PCB *production* tool. if i was doing small runs of PCB production, where i was absolutely 100% confident that the circuit was proven, correct, and functional, *then* yes absolutely i would get one of the T962 ovens.
l.