Re: [OT] Mini desktop wave solderer?

If you find an old or cheap electric fry pan, you can fill it with bar
solder and create a molten pot of solder.  Depending on the range of the
fry pan,  you may have to do some surgery to the controller to get it to
run hot enough.   I think the one I used I bent some part of the thermostat
to adjust the calibration a bit.

Then you can spray or dip the bottom of your board in flux and then dip it
in  the solder using heavy welding gloves.   For the boards I did,  there
were connectors which snapped in the board I could use as a handle, but you
could also use tongs. Note that the solder is so dense that if you
accidentally drop a board, it will float on top until you can grab it with
tongs.

You will probably want to find some way to preheat the boards a bit to
activate the flux before dipping.  I happened to have an old infrared
indoor electric grill.   But a toaster oven would work on a low setting.
You're just trying to dry the flux and heat the boards up a bit.

I ran hundreds of through hole boards this way in production before I
bought a used wave solder machine.   I was never so glad to quit having to
do something.  It's hot, smelly (provide lots of ventilation and an
appropriate filtering mask is highly recommended) and generally unpleasant,
but it works.

Note that there are "dip solder" machines which make the dipping process
less hands on.

On Mon, Jan 20, 2025, 5:03 PM Neil <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I still do prototype board assembly with some through-hole parts and
> wondering what options are available to make the through-hole stuff
> quicker.
> I saw a video with a little spout pumping liquified solder up through it
> like a mini fountain so running a PCB over it worked like a wave-solder
> machine. Something like this would be great, but can't find anything
> like it via Google.
>
> Anyone know of something workable?
>
> Cheers,
> -Neil.
>
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