How to Maintain a Reflow Oven?

Proper reflow oven maintenance can extend its life cycle, keep the machine in good condition, and improve production efficiency and product quality. One of the most important tasks for properly maintaining a reflow oven is remove the built-up flux residue inside the oven’s chamber. Although there is a flux collection system in modern reflow machines, there still is a big probability that flux will adhere to the inert air ventilation pipe and thermal regulator panel. This will cause inaccurate thermal data readings and the thermal controller will make the wrong adjustment instructions.

The following is a list of daily, house-keeping tasks to be accomplished for maintaining a reflow oven:

• Clean and wipe down the machine daily. Make a neat workplace.
• Check conveyor chains, sprockets, mesh and the automatic lubrication system. Add lubricate oil on time.
• Clean the photoelectric switches which detect whether a board is within or outside of the reflow oven.

Additional maintenance tasks include:

• Once the chamber temperature decreases to room temperature, open the hood and clean the inside surface of chamber with a proper cleaning agent.
• Clean the ventilation pipe with a cleaning agent.
• Vacuum the chamber and remove the flux residue and soldering balls.
• Check and clean the air blower.
• Check and replace the air filter.

The following table is a typical lubrication schedule example:

Description –  Period – Recommended lubricant

1. Head sprocket, bearings and adjustable chain – Every Month – Calcium-based lubricant ZG-2
2. Timing chain, bearings, and tension pulley
3. Guide, mesh, and cylinder bearing
4. Conveyor bearings
5. Ball screw
6. PCB carrier chain – Every day – Dupont Krytox GPL107
7. Inert ball screw and guider – Every week – Dupont Krytox GPL227
8. Guider support

The most popular desktop reflow oven from RobotDigg China

This post is a contribution of www.robotdigg.com. RobotDigg offers motorized and linear Delta Robots, Cartesian XYZ, SCARA, SLA 3D Printer, Benchtop Surface Mount, CNC Laser, Robotics and many more products.

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