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Hardware finished for now

A project log for vapsy

A tiny vapor phase reflow oven

christophChristoph 09/29/2015 at 15:543 Comments

After some more sawing, screwing, connecting and cursing I can now show some pictures of the finished hardware.

Front

The tube in the background has a slight kink, but that doesn't obstruct the flow passage. I'll try to remove that later with a hot air gun. As it's a teflon tube it is quite sturdy and really doesn't like being bent, but I couldn't get more flexible silicone tube for high temperatures in reasonable amounts or at reasonable prices.

Left

More about the electronics box below. The terminal strip that connects the heaters to the electronics box needs a cover, but I'm not yet sure how exactly that should be done.

Rear

As the thermocouples are fixed in place with silicone (in the chamber), I made a small bracket to stabilize them. The upper thermocouple got loose during assembly so I had to attach it again, and the silicone needs some time to cure. No testing today!

The chiller is mounted with another bracket, and has a thermocouple at the outlet. I'm planning to use this to measure the amount of excess evaporating galden. I'll write more about this when I did some testing as I have no idea about how well the system reacts.

Right

Top with opened lid

The clamps swing away to the side to release the lid.

Electronics Box

Lower (high voltage) PCB:

Silicone mat to isolate between lower and upper PCB:

Upper (low voltage) PCB:

In the left view picture above you can see a small hole in the lid, which is above the Teensy LC's programming button. If nothing breaks I won't have to open the box again until I have to repair or change some of the electronics.

Discussions

Alex Rich wrote 09/29/2015 at 16:28 point

really cool looking.  you could add a master power switch and hide the terminal strips in the electrical box

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Christoph wrote 09/29/2015 at 18:09 point

There's no space left in the box (well, not enough for the strip). If you take a close look there are even enough terminals in the box for all wires, but the wires are too stiff. That's the reason why I added the extra terminal strip in the first place, because I could use more flexible wires from there to the box. A master switch could be added, I'll consider it. Thanks!

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Alex Rich wrote 09/29/2015 at 18:36 point

I meant add another electrical box, "single gang" for a light switch that would be your master switch.  Then use extra space inside that electrical box for the terminal strips.  Just an idea, obviously you could just use any box.

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