2018-12-04

So anyone that has had boards manufactured by Elecrow (https://www.elecrow.com/) knows what that picture means – the stuff is in the mail.  For those that do not partake in hobbies that involve custom fabrication by Chinese firms, every time Elecrow completes an order, they email you a picture of it before sending it out.  I am exited.  This is the first four layer board I have done and this is the first time I have specified the white board color.  Seems very trendy.  I am now a very trendy person.

Another bit of news is that I now own a hacked together reflow toaster.  Not going to take credit for designing it – bought the kit from Whizoo (http://www.whizoo.com/).  The kit was very comprehensive in its scope. The Black and Decker that got turned into a reflow toaster was very comprehensive in its hazards.  The damn thing is built from dull razors it seems.  Lost a good quart of blood wrestling with it.  The whimsical bit of the kit is the included band-aid (ahem, adhesive bandage).  You’re basically expected to spill blood building this thing.  Unless, I suppose, you’re one of those new type of men who get manicures and wear safety gloves.

Below are a couple of build shots.  None of them are very interesting.  I eviscerated a toaster.  Que confetti cannons.

Oh, the one thing that I did find fairly interesting is the fact that the toaster oven, as built, does not have an actual thermostat.

Gasp

It would appear that the thermostat is calibrated such that it infers the oven’s temperature based on the heat leaking into the … electrical chamber(?)  Here are a couple of pictures of the thermostat in question.

Neato, huh.  No sensing bulb.  Just a bi-metallic clicker doohickey responding to the ambient temp around it.

Here are some more pictures of the build.

Before I got my bloody meat hooks on it.  Or more correctly, before I bloodied my meat hooks on it.

The kit.  Very complete.  I am very pleased with it.

The interior insulation almost complete. 

The controller housing roughed in.

The SSRs installed.

Almost complete.

Operational and a first test reflow completed.

One of the neat things about the Whizoo controller is that is has a “learn” mode.  It characterizes your oven toaster, generates tuning parameters for internal use, and displays an overall evaluation. It takes into account things like thermal inertia, insulation efficiency, heater power, etc.  My readout was ‘87% – Very Good’.  I of course chose to interpret this as ‘Go spend money at McMaster (https://www.mcmaster.com/) to buy more high-temp insulation’.  I am not the one to argue with myself so I did exactly that.  More insulation (20 feet of it to be exact) should be here tomorrow.  I hope my toaster characterization score goes up a little bit.

That’s it for now.