T962 Reflow Oven

I was very impressed with this Reflow Oven. I had read and seen YouTube videos which were more than a bit negative. They provided information as to how to eliminate the smell, how to improve performance, etc. etc. But I just plugged it in and ran a couple of dry runs and observed that it did not smell anymore than a household kitchen oven when first turned on -- not much. I am an electronics engineer and needed an oven like this to build prototype surface mount boards. I loaded my 120mm square (4 3/4 inch) board with SMT parts, crossed my fingers, and ran the standard automated F1 temperature profile. All parts from very small to some large components (mostly1206) came out beautifully soldered. I am so glad I didn't listen to the OLD negativity. This company appears to keep improving their product and keeping the price down so that professionals and hobbyists can be successful. Thanks also to the supplier, who delivered the T962 on time when I was needing to quickly replace my hot air gun.

I was nervous to spend over $200 for this oven, but it works great right out of the box. I have been using Chip-Quick low temp soldering paste and the first standard soldering profile (even though it is a much higher soldering profile than the Chip-Quick suggests) - it is soooo awesome. I put a tiny, tiny bit of solder paste on the pads, place my part, and throw the board in the oven. 8 or so minutes later, I have a perfectly soldered board. I have had no trouble and have been very pleased with this purchase.

I did some searching and this is pretty much the only reflow oven for close to this price. This oven is a tenth the cost of a quality oven, so don't expect it to be perfect, you'll have to take the bad with the good.This oven works, and for this price you're already ahead of the game. It does not heat evenly so you'll have to do some trial and error before you discover hot and cold spots in your drawer. Also, because all of the heat is produced by IR lamps, reflective components and light colored boards can give you unexpected results. As for temperature accuracy, there are issues, but for this you'll have to read other reviews.

I am impressed with the level of dedication others have committed to making this unruly contraption work.I came into this project fully aware that I would be performing a variety of modifications. I was inspired by Jerry Walker's "Improving a T-962a reflow oven" series and Voltlog #338 "T-962 Reflow Oven Upgrades and Fixes" on Youtube. Even after all these modifications, this oven is barely usable, and I almost regret going through all this effort for such unsatisfying results.Without modifications, I don't know how you could depend on one of these ovens. The temperature spread and accuracy was so far off I would be afraid to solder anything more than one-off hobby projects in there.To tighten down on the inconsistent temperatures, I added a recirculation fan and wire shades beneath the heating elements. Baffles were preinstalled in the rear so I did not need to perform this step. The upgrades kept the temperature spread on the PCB under 20 deg C during ramp up and less than 10 deg C at the peak using a two-point probe in typical positions. I reprogrammed with Unified Engineering's T-962 controller firmware and added the DS18B20+ for cold junction compensation, which allowed me to calibrate the thermocouple offsets and achieve higher accuracy (<1 deg C at room temperature, <5 deg C difference from board average near the peak).Here is one more suggestion for anyone else looking to embark on this troublesome path with the T-962 series reflow ovens. The temperature probes are extremely sensitive to their position in the chamber. As configured, the thermocouple probes were reading significantly lower than the PCB itself (>40 deg C difference during heating). I tried a lot of different positions in the board, but it was very sensitive and seemed to wildly diverge with even small changes in position. Instead, I added a tiny bit of Kapton tape to the ends of the thermocouple probes to increase the amount of radiant heat they receive. This seemed to improve their accuracy at peak temperatures and reduced their sensitivity to position. The Kapton tape reduced the temperature difference between the probes themselves and the PCB to <20 deg C during full blast heating (due to thermal lag) and < 5 deg C near the peak when the duty cycle was 50%.Overall, I am not very impressed with the T-962 series reflow ovens. Even after all this work, it has erratic behavior, such as auto-starting another run. It needs to be baby-sat constantly or else it will go out of control. The oven seems like it is just barely within the acceptable operating zone, threatening to diverge at any point in time. It is difficult to verify the actual temperature spread inside the chamber. I haven't been able to reprogram the controller, as it refuses to accept new firmware after the update. On the flip side, the oven is very configurable, and you could most certainly build your own controller for this oven. The T-962 is a janky Chinesium intermediate DIY product which is not designed well but could be better than your average toaster oven.

This oven does not work properly out of the box! The micro-controller inside of the unit has no way of accurately detecting the oven temperature. It is off by at least 90 degrees Celsius. When you run a temperature profile, it thinks it's reaching 225 C, when in reality it only reaches about 150 C (MAYBE). The over all design and hardware of the oven looks and feels functional, but the thing is virtually brain dead.I tried to run my desired temperature profile using the manual mode, but I ended up melting the plastic components on my board.Overall, I'm not satisfied and I plan on returning this.

It was robustly packaged for the airline journey. Promptly shipped. Item works as advertised - right out of the box. Documentation can use some improvements in grammar. I am satisfied with my purchase. A good purchase. I have assembled very complex cards with this Oven - 484 Pin BGA, 169 Pin BGA, 79-QFN, 0402 resistors and capacitors in a single card.

The cheapest reflow oven you could buy 2 years ago was around $1000 so I made my own from a cheap toaster oven. Now this one is under $300 and its a steal! My concern was that it would be very difficult setting custom cycles. In fact its not that hard to do at all. However two of the pre-programmed cycles work for my different solder pastes. The progress of the reflow cycle is plotted on a graph as the cycle progresses. Checking the temperatures witha thermocouple, you must keep the PCBs away from the front 1" of the tray. (where its close to the glass)Anywhere else, the temperature is consistent.