{"id":74,"date":"2013-02-19T04:43:39","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T04:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/?p=74"},"modified":"2013-02-19T05:03:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T05:03:59","slug":"hot-air-rework-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/archives\/74","title":{"rendered":"Hot air rework station"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve stayed away from using solder paste because I thought the paste needed refridgeration, thought I needed to order a custom stencil for each board, and thought I needed an oven or modified hotplate. But, at around the same time, Dave from EEVBlog posted a video on hot to use a hot air gun to do SMD work<\/a> and CNLohr posted\u00a0a video showing how he doesn’t use a stencil<\/a>.\u00a0I really wasn’t looking forward to soldering all the SMD components on my new board, so I started looking into this option and discovered ZephPaste<\/a>, which appears to solve the\u00a0refrigeration problem.\u00a0So, I figured I’d give this a try!<\/p>\n

I first found some cheap hot air guns, but when I read the reviews, I discovered they weren’t only poorly made, they were downright dangerous. With a little more research, I found the\u00a0X-Tronic 8080<\/a>,\u00a0a great rework station that includes a bench power supply, which I really need, and a lighted magnifier, which I really wanted.<\/p>\n

\"XTronic8080\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Best of all, it’s made by a company near my hometown! I ordered last week, hoping it would arrive before the weekend. It didn’t, but it did show up today while I still had a partial day off work.<\/p>\n

So, I broke out the ZephPaste and got ready to assemble the spinner!<\/p>\n

That’s when I finally figured out why I didn’t understand how to use it before. The paste comes in a syringe, but without a plunger or a dispenser tip. I found other things to use as a plunger, but without a tip, it just wasn’t going to work. So, now I had to order more tools with a few day delay. I knew I should have taken a closer look at that paste when I first got it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve stayed away from using solder paste because I thought the paste needed refridgeration, thought I needed to order a custom stencil for each board, and thought I needed an oven or modified hotplate. But, at around the same time, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spinnerhd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/schminktronics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}