Sooner or later, a radio mechanic involved in the repair of modern electronic equipment is faced with the question of purchasing an infrared soldering station. The need has arisen due to the fact that modern elements are massively “throwing their hooves away”; in short, manufacturers of both small and large integrated circuits are abandoning flexible leads in favor of patches. This process has been going on for quite some time.

Such chip packages are called BGA - Ball grid array, in other words - an array of balls. Such microcircuits are mounted and dismantled using 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 graphics controllers cannot be removed and installed with a thermal air blower. Maybe just warm it up, but warming it up doesn’t give long-term results.
In general, closer to the topic.. Ready-made professional infrared stations have exorbitant prices, and inexpensive 1000 - 2000 green ones do not have enough functionality, in short, you still have to add them. Personally, for me, an infrared soldering station is a tool that you can assemble yourself and to suit your needs. Yes, I don’t argue, there are time costs. But if you approach the assembly of the IR station methodically, you will get the desired result and creative satisfaction. So, I have planned for myself that I will work with boards measuring 250x250 mm. For soldering TV Main and computer video adapters, possibly tablet PCs.

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

Using approximate calculations, the base turned out to be 400x390 mm. Next, it was necessary to roughly calculate the layout based on the sizes of the heaters and PID controllers. Using this simple “felt-tip pen” method, I determined the height of my future infrared soldering station and the bevel angle of the front panel:

Next, let's take on the skeleton. Everything is simple here - we bend the aluminum corners according to the design of our future soldering station, secure it, and tie it together. We go to the garage and bury our heads in DVD and VCR cases. I do a good job of not throwing it away - I know it will come in handy. Look, I’ll build a house out of them :) Look, they build from beer cans, from corks, and even from ice cream sticks!

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

We run to the shops in search of a non-stick baking sheet. The baking tray 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?” He answered that the inappropriate size of the pie violates the overall harmony of perception, which does not correspond to my moral and ethical principles.

Hurray! The first parcel, and it contains especially important spare parts: PIDs (what a scary word) The decoding is also not simple: Proportional-Integral-Differential controller. In general, let’s understand their setup and operation.

Next is the tin. This is where we had to work hard with the DVD covers so that everything would turn out smoothly and solidly, we’re doing it for ourselves. After adjusting all the walls, you need to cut the necessary holes for the FIDs on the front wall, for the cooler on the back wall and for painting - in the garage. As a result, the intermediate version of our IR soldering station began to look like this:

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

Hurray! A parcel has arrived from China. Now it already contained the most basic wealth for building our infrared soldering station. Namely, these are 3 lower IR emitters 60x240 mm, the top 80x80 mm. and a pair of 40A solid-state relays. It was possible to take 25 amps, but I always try to do everything with a reserve, and the price was not much different..

The eyes are afraid, but the hands are doing. I try not to forget this old truth, just like about chicken, one grain at a time... What we have in the end - After installing the emitters in a baking tray, installing the solids on the radiator, blown by the cooler and connecting everything, we got something more or less similar to infrared soldering station.

Once the preheating thing started to come to an end and the first tests on heating, temperature retention and hysteresis were done, we could safely move on to the upper infrared emitter. It turned out to be more work than I initially expected. Several design solutions were considered, but in practice the last option turned out to be more successful, which I implemented.

Making a table to hold the board is another task that requires heating the skull. It is necessary that several conditions be met - uniform holding of the printed circuit board so that the board does not sag when heated. In addition, it was possible to move an already clamped board left or right. The board clamp should be both strong and give a little slack, since the board expands when heated. Well, the table should also have the ability to secure boards of different sizes. Not yet fully finished table: (no clothespins for the board)

Now the time has come for testing, debugging, adjusting thermal profiles for different types of microcircuits and solder alloys. During the fall of 2014, a decent number of computer video cards and television Main-boards were restored

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

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

When performing reballing and soldering of BGA microcircuits, it is recommended to use infrared soldering stations. They are characterized by selective thermal effects: first, the metal elements of the microcircuit are heated and only then the non-metallic ones. This process is directly related to the wavelength (equal to approximately 2-8 microns) and avoids mechanical damage to components, since due to the concentration of infrared radiation at the desired point, uniform heating is ensured and overheating is eliminated. A modern IR soldering station, which is not particularly difficult to buy today, will help you cope with even the most difficult case of soldering printed circuit boards.

If you need a high-quality, reliable and modern solution for BGA soldering, we recommend that you pay attention to the infrared soldering stations presented in our online store. With an ideal price/performance ratio, our IR soldering stations are highly popular and provide a cost-effective turnkey solution for gentle repairs, suitable for both professionals and hobbyists.

The Superice online store contains both budget options from the YIHUA and Ly brands, as well as more expensive soldering and repair systems, such as ACHI IR6500 and Dinghua DH-A01R soldering stations.

You can buy an IR soldering station wholesale and retail for your enterprises, laboratories and personal needs! You can pay for your order upon receipt, and we will deliver you an IR soldering station for free to any city in Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Voronezh, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Bryansk, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk , Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Samara, Volgograd, Barnaul and other cities!

Many radio amateurs cannot find the right tool for various microcircuits and components. A do-it-yourself soldering station for such craftsmen is one of the best options for solving all problems.

You no longer need to choose from a variety of imperfect factory devices; you just need to find the appropriate components, spend a little time and make the perfect device that meets all the requirements with your own hands.

The modern market offers radio amateurs a huge number of different types with different configurations.

In most cases, soldering stations are divided into:

1. Contact stations.
2. Digital and analog devices.
3. Induction devices.
4. Contactless devices.
5. Dismantling stations.

The first station option is a soldering iron connected to a temperature control unit.

Electrical diagram of a soldering station.

Contact soldering devices are divided into:

• devices for working with lead-containing solders;
• devices for working with lead-free solders.

Allowing the melting of lead-free solder, they have powerful heating elements. This choice of soldering irons is due to the high melting point of lead-free solder. Of course, due to the presence of a temperature controller, such devices are suitable for working with lead-containing solder.

Analog soldering machines regulate the temperature of the tip using a temperature sensor. Once the tip overheats, the power is cut off. When the core cools, power is supplied to the soldering iron again and heating begins.

Digital devices control the temperature of the soldering iron using a specialized PID controller, which in turn obeys a unique program embedded in the microcontroller.

A distinctive feature of induction devices is the heating of the soldering iron core using a pulse coil. During operation, high-frequency oscillations occur, forming eddy currents in the ferromagnetic coating of the equipment.

The heating stops due to the ferromagnet reaching the Curie point, after which the properties of the metal change and the effect of exposure to high frequencies stops.

Non-contact soldering machines are divided into:

• infrared;
• hot air;
• combined.

The soldering station consists of a heating element in the form of a quartz or ceramic emitter.

Infrared soldering stations, compared to hot air soldering stations, have the following tangible advantages:

• no need to search for nozzles for a soldering iron;
• well suited for working with all types of microcircuits;
• absence of thermal deformation of printed circuit boards due to uniform heating;
• radio components are not blown away from the board by air;
• uniform heating of the soldering area.

It is important to note that infrared soldering devices are professional equipment and are rarely used by ordinary radio amateurs.

Dependence of temperature on soldering time.

In most cases, infrared devices consist of:

• top ceramic or quartz heater;
• bottom heater;
• tables for supporting printed circuit boards;
• microcontroller that controls the station;
• thermocouples to monitor current temperatures.

Hot air soldering stations are used for mounting radio components. In most cases, hot air stations are convenient for soldering components located in SMD cases. Such parts are miniature in size and are easily soldered by supplying hot air from a hot air gun to them.

Combination devices, as a rule, combine several types of soldering equipment, for example, a hot air gun and a soldering iron.

Dismantling stations are equipped with a compressor that draws in air. Such equipment is ideal for removing excess solder or dismantling unnecessary components on a printed circuit board.

All more or less decent component stations in different buildings have the following additional equipment:

• backlight lamps;
• smoke extractors or hoods;
• guns for dismantling and suctioning excess solder;
• vacuum tweezers;
• infrared emitters for heating the entire printed circuit board;
• hot air gun for heating a specific area;
• thermal tweezers.

DIY soldering station

The most functional and convenient station is the infrared one.

Before you make an infrared soldering station with your own hands, you should purchase the following items:

• halogen heater with four 2KW infrared lamps;
• upper infrared heater for the soldering station in the form of a 450 W ceramic infrared head;
• aluminum corners to create a structure frame;
• shower hose;
• steel wire;
• leg from any table lamp;
• programmable microcomputer, for example, Arduino;
• several solid state relays;
• two thermocouples to control the current temperature;
• 5 volt power supply;
• small screen;
• 5 volt buzzer;
• fasteners;
• if necessary, a soldering hair dryer.

Quartz or ceramic heaters can be used as the top heater.

Making a soldering station with your own hands.

The advantages of ceramic emitters are presented:

• invisible radiation spectrum that does not damage the eyes of the radio amateur;
• longer uptime;
• very widespread.

In turn, quartz IR heaters have the following advantages:

• greater temperature uniformity in the heating zone;
• lower cost.

The steps for assembling an IR soldering station are presented below:

1. Installation of lower heater elements for working with bga elements.
   The simplest method for obtaining four halogen lamps is to dismantle them from an old heater. After the issue with the lamps is resolved, you should come up with the type of housing.
2. Assembling the structure of the soldering table and thinking through the system for holding the boards on the lower heater.
   Installing the PCB mounting system involves cutting six pieces of aluminum extrusion and attaching them to the chassis using perforated tape nuts. The resulting mounting system allows you to move the printed circuit board and adapt it to the needs of the radio amateur.
3. Installation of elements of the upper heater and soldering gun.
   A 450 - 500 W ceramic heater can be purchased in a Chinese online store. To install the top heating, you need to take a sheet of metal and bend it to the size of the heater. After this, the top heater of the homemade IR together with the hairdryer should be placed on the leg of an old lamp and connected to the power supply.
4. Programming and connecting a microcomputer.
   The most important stage of creating your own infrared soldering device, including: creating a housing for the microcontroller with thinking over the space for other components and buttons. The case along with the controller must contain the following elements: two solid-state relays, a display, a power supply, buttons and connecting terminals.

Most radio amateurs prefer to use old system units as the base of the housing and aluminum corners for attaching all the main elements of the lower heater. When connecting lamps, it is recommended to use the standard wiring of a disassembled halogen heater.

Upon completion of the station assembly process, you should proceed to directly setting up the microcontroller. Radio amateurs who made their own infrared soldering station often had to use an Arduino ATmega2560 microcomputer.

Software written specifically for devices based on this type of controller can be found on the Internet.

Scheme

Schematic diagram of an infrared soldering iron.

A typical soldering station circuit includes:

• thermocouple amplifier block;
• microcontroller with screen;
• keyboard;
• an audible alarm, such as a computer speaker;
• batteries and support elements for the soldering gun;
• drawings of zero detector elements;
• power section elements;
• power supply for all equipment.

In most cases, the station diagram is represented by the following microcomponents:

• optocoupler;
• mosfet;
• triac;
• several stabilizers;
• potentiometer;
• trim resistor;
• resistor;
• LEDs;
• resonator;
• several resonators in SMD housings;
• capacitors;
• switches.

The exact markings of the parts vary depending on the needs and intended operating conditions.

Process

The process of assembling an infrared soldering station largely depends on the preferences of the master.

A typical version of the device on the Arduino microcontroller, which suits most radio amateurs, is assembled in the following sequence:

• selection of necessary elements;
• preparing radio components and heaters for installation work;
• assembly of the soldering station body;
• installation of lower preheaters for uniform heating of massive printed circuit boards;
• installation of the control board of the soldering combine and its fixation using pre-prepared fasteners;
• installation of an upper heater and a soldering hot air gun;
• installation of thermocouple mounts;
• programming the microcontroller for certain soldering conditions;
• checking all elements, including halogen lamps of the lower heater, infrared emitter and soldering gun.

Soldering station design.

After complete assembly of the infrared station, you should check all elements for functionality.

Special attention should be paid to checking the correct operation of thermocouples, since this system does not have their compensation.

This means that when the air temperature in the room changes, the thermocouple will begin to measure the temperature with a significant error.

Checking the ceramic heater head is also important. If the infrared emitter overheats, it is necessary to provide airflow or cooling using an additional radiator.

Settings

Setting the operating modes of an IR soldering station mainly consists of:

• setting acceptable operating modes for soldering guns;
• checking the operating modes of the lower heating element;
• setting the operating temperatures of the upper quartz emitter;
• installing special buttons to quickly change heating parameters;
• microcontroller programming.

Features of the soldering station device.

As soldering work progresses, it may be necessary to change temperatures and conditions.

Such actions can be performed using buttons associated with the microcomputer:

• the + button should be configured to increase the temperature of a purchased or homemade quartz emitter in steps of 5 - 10 degrees;
• buttons – should also lower the temperature in small increments.

The basic settings of the microcomputer are presented:

• adjusting the P, I and D values;
• adjusting profiles that specify the step of changing certain parameters;
• setting critical temperatures at which the station turns off.

Some designers make the upper heater from a hair dryer. This approach is only suitable for soldering small elements in SMD packages.

Homemade IR soldering stations are perfect for small repairs at home or in private workshops. Due to the relative simplicity of their design and wide functionality, infrared stations are in incredible demand.

Electrical circuit of a soldering iron.

1. Correct configuration of microcontroller parameters.
   If incorrect parameters are entered into the computer, the soldering machine may not properly solder components and damage the printed circuit board mask.
2. Wearing protective equipment when performing soldering work.
   A quartz emitter, unlike a ceramic emitter, during operation produces radiation at a wavelength visible to the eye. Therefore, if the device uses a quartz infrared emitter, it is recommended to wear special safety glasses to protect the operator from vision damage.
3. The electrical circuit diagram of the station must contain only reliable elements.
   In addition, all capacitors and resistors used during assembly must be selected with a small margin.
4. The controller for the IR soldering station can be selected from popular Arduino models.
   If desired, the controller can be made from an unknown microcomputer, however, in this case the master will have to independently develop software for the operation of the soldering station.
5. When assembling the station, you should provide a connector for connecting a soldering iron.
   Sometimes, it is more convenient to spot solder the board components using a regular soldering iron or a device with a hot air gun instead of a tip. A similar solution can be implemented by designing an additional thermocouple to control the temperature of the soldering iron.
6. For soldering using active fluxes and solders with high lead content, air circulation must be ensured.
   A good hood or fan will greatly facilitate the operator’s breathing and prevent him from breathing in the fumes of harmful metals.

Conclusion

IR soldering stations are some of the best installations in a wide variety of housing designs. You can make a soldering station using infrared heating elements even at home.

As a rule, home craftsmen prefer to use powerful halogen lamps for bottom heaters. Basic pinouts of connectors, microcircuit parameters, microcontroller models, instructions on how to make a soldering gun from a household hair dryer and other information are available on the Internet.

For a long time now I have been thinking about getting a soldering station with my own hands and using it to repair my old video cards, set-top boxes and laptops. An old halogen heating pad can be used for heating, a leg from an old table lamp can be used to hold and move the top heater, the circuit boards will rest on the aluminum rails, a shower coil will hold the thermocouples, and an Arduino board will monitor the temperature.

First, let's figure out what a soldering station is. Modern chips on integrated circuits (CPU, GPU, etc.) do not have legs, but have an array of balls (BGA, Ball grid array). In order to solder/unsolder such a chip, you need to have a device that will heat the entire IC to a temperature of 220 degrees without melting the board or subjecting the IC to thermal shock. This is why we need a temperature controller. Such devices cost in the range of $400-1200. This project should cost approximately $130. You can read about BGA and soldering stations on Wikipedia, and we will start working!

Materials:

• Four-lamp halogen heater ~1800w (as bottom heating)
• 450w ceramic IR (top heater)
• Aluminum curtain slats
• Spiral cable for shower
• Strong thick wire
• Table lamp leg
• Arduino ATmega2560 board
• 2 SSR 25-DA2x Adafruit MAX31855K ​​boards (or do it yourself like I did)
• 2 thermocouples type K
• DC power supply 220 to 5v, 0.5A
• Letter module LCD 2004
• 5v tweeter

Step 1: Bottom Heater: Reflector, Bulbs, Housing

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Find the halogen heater, open it and take out the reflector and 4 lamps. Be careful not to break the lamps. Here you can use your imagination and create your own housing that will hold the lamps and reflector. For example, you can take an old PC case and place lights, a reflector, and wires inside it. I used 1mm thick metal sheets and made housings for the lower and upper heaters, as well as a housing for the Arduino controller. Like I said before, you can be creative and come up with something of your own for the case.

The heater I used was 1800W (4 lamps at 450w in parallel). Use the wires from the heater and connect the lamps in parallel. You can build in an AC plug like I did, or run a cable directly from the bottom heater to the controller.

Step 2: Bottom Heater: Board Mounting System

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After creating the bottom heater body, measure the longer length of the bottom heater window and cut two pieces of aluminum strip the same length. You will also need to cut 6 more pieces, each half the size of the smaller side of the heater window. Drill holes along the two ends of the large pieces of slats, as well as one end of each of the 6 small slats and the long part of the window. Before screwing the parts to the body, you need to create a fastening mechanism with nuts, similar to the one I made in the photographs. This is necessary so that the smaller slats can slide over the larger slats.

Once you've threaded the nuts through the rails and screwed everything together, use a screwdriver to move and tighten the screws so that the mounting system fits the size and shape of your board.

Step 3: Bottom Heater: Thermocouple Holders

To make thermocouple holders, measure the diagonal of the bottom heater window and cut two pieces of spiral shower cable to the same length. Unwind the rigid wire and cut two pieces, each 6 cm longer than the coiled shower cable. Pass the hard wire and thermocouple through the coiled cable and bend both ends of the wire as I did in the pictures. Leave one end longer than the other in order to tighten it with one of the rack screws.

Step 4: Top heater: ceramic plate

To make the top heater, I used a 450W ceramic infrared heater. You can find these on Aliexpress. The trick is to create a good case for the heater with the correct air flow. Next we move on to the heater holder.

Step 5: Top Heater: Holder

Find an old table lamp with a leg and take it apart. In order to cut the lamp correctly, you need to calculate everything exactly, since the upper infrared heater must reach all corners of the lower heater. So, first attach the top heater body, make the X axis cut, do the correct calculations and finally make the Z axis cut.

Step 6: PID controller on Arduino

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Find the right materials and create a durable and safe case for your Arduino and other accessories.

You can simply cut and attach the wires connecting the controller (top/bottom power supply, power controller, thermocouples) using a soldering iron or get connectors and do everything carefully. I didn't know exactly how much heat the SSR would produce, so I added a fan to the case. Whether you install a fan or not, you definitely need to apply thermal paste to the SSR. The code is simple and makes it clear how to connect the buttons, SSR, screen and thermocouples, so connecting everything together will be easy. How to operate the device: There is no auto-tuning for the P, I and D values, so these values ​​will need to be entered manually depending on your settings. There are 4 profiles, in each of them you can set the number of steps, Ramp (C/s), dwel (waiting time between steps), lower heater threshold, target temperature for each step and P,I,D values ​​for the upper and lower heaters . If, for example, you set 3 steps, 80, 180 and 230 degrees with a lower heater threshold of 180, then your board will be heated from below only to 180 degrees, then the temperature from below will remain at 180 degrees, and the upper heater will heat up to 230 degrees. The code still needs a lot of improvements, but it gives you an idea of ​​how things should work. This guide does not go into great detail as there are a lot of DIY elements involved and each build will be different. I hope that you will be inspired by this instruction and use it to make your own IR soldering station.

Repairing laptops and video cards, reballing (dismantling and installing a chip with the restoration of solder balls) usually cannot be done 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 quite common.

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

A little 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 to glow red. The hotter they become, the more orange and yellow they become, then blue.

Many organic molecules absorb infrared radiation intensely, 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, the heated body also emits light, and the more heated the body is, the shorter the wavelength of the 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 at a certain temperature range.

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

A DIY IR soldering station is an infrared heater that releases heat into the environment through infrared radiation.

DIY infrared soldering station

Bottom heating

The heating housing 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 building at the nearest flea market.

It is necessary to cut a hole in the housing with a grinder for ceramic heaters. From an aluminum cutout, make a support for heaters with legs from ordinary bolts and nuts. The entire structure will be supported on the substrate.

The bottom heating consists of four ceramic heaters purchased on AliExpress. The price for them is reasonable, the seller provides fast delivery.

Each heater (dimensions: length - 24 cm, width - 6 cm) has a power of 600 W. Four heaters make up a 24x24 cm2 heating panel. 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 can be placed on such heating. For comparison, a standard factory Chinese station has such a heating area of ​​150x150 cm2, and 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. Connection of heaters in series-parallel:

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

This scheme is used to lighten the wiring a little. If you connect all heaters in parallel, the final load will be 2850 W:

• bottom heating – 600x4=2400 W;
• upper heater at maximum load – 450 W.

If there are also electrical equipment working in the room (several light bulbs, a computer, a soldering iron, a kettle), then the 16-amp circuit breaker will trip.

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

On top, when work is being done, you can put a metal grill from the refrigerator on the body with the heater. But it is better to use glass ceramics that match the size of the case, and make a convenient thermal table for board repair.

Top heating

The upper heating can be made from a Soviet photographic enlarger UPA-60. The model is suitable for a homemade soldering station. A ceramic heater measuring 80x8 cm fits perfectly onto a photo enlarger. In this case, you can adjust the height of the heater and the motor in any direction. It is convenient to attach the tripod to the table itself, and move the lower heating if necessary. The heaters are large enough to heat large chips and sockets for processor sockets.

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

Control block

A ready-made plastic box can be purchased at a special store for making electronics yourself, 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 large box.

The holes for bringing out the controls to the front panel are cut with a jigsaw with a special metal file. Usually this does not cause difficulties if you have practice with a similar instrument.

PID controller REX-C100 can also be ordered on AliExpress. Included 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 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 controlled manually. Usually it is set to maximum so that the top heats up faster.

Tester

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

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

As a result, a hastily assembled homemade IR soldering station will cost about ten times less than a 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 laptop board. One of the board's malfunctions is the breakdown of the video chip. Sometimes 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 PCB. Changing the chip is quite expensive. But if you warm it up, you can extend the life of the laptop. Using the example of such banal heating, a homemade infrared soldering station can be used.

To begin with, prepare the board for heating, remove the parts:

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

It is better to remove the compound with tweezers after preheating it with a hot air gun. The hairdryer is set at a temperature of 1800, medium air flow.

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

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 grid 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 solder material. If the solder is lead-free, then it is advisable to heat it to 1100.

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

When the desired temperature is reached, the upper heater is turned on, which is controlled by a dimmer. When the temperature comes closer to 2300, the power of the dimmer needs to be reduced. This is done to prevent heating too quickly. It is recommended to maintain a minute at a temperature of 2300 and then turn off the device. The temperature will drop.