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Experiences with Pre-Heater - I'm Looking to Buy

Andrew J

I'm looking to buy a pre-heater to help with SMD soldering and rework, although mostly the former, and I'm interested in others experiences with these.  A lot of the heaters at my end of the budget are IR based which seems to be ok but may be impacted by reflectivity of boards/parts (I wonder how well they work with white PCBs.)  So far, the PCBs I've had made up are 100mmx100mm although one has been 140mmx1  The choices seem to be to spend a fantastic amount on a 'known' brand or rather less on one of the fairly common cheaper Chinese brands. 

 

What I'm not interested in is:

  • any sort of DIY solution.
  • anything that has a reputation for needed fixing on arrival.
  • an oven.

 

I seem to be homing in on the following:

 

Metcal PCT-100Metcal PCT-100: well known brand and not overly expensive.  Doesn't specify board size but looks like it may allow for 200mm x 100mm based on product dimensions.  It does say it is a 'focussed' heater which implies to me that it targets a small part of the underside of a board placed directly above the heater element so I don't know how good it would be at heating the overall board without overheating one specific spot.  All the marketing blurb shows very small PCBs being used.  There was a 'review' on YouTube but it wasn't a particularly useful one.

 

The bigger brother, Metcal PCT-1000Metcal PCT-1000, looks very useful but is really expensive.  Could form part of a larger soldering solution with other Metcal devices but I don't really need them right now.  If Element14 want to donate in return for a review then I could manage that image image

 

Aoyue Int883: a cheaper brand that makes a number of different soldering stations but the quality may be a bit suspect - I saw a YouTube video about a different pre-heater of theirs that came damaged.  Hardly statistically relevant, Digikey sell it if that means anything, and it does have a number of different operating modes and looks like it would be well controlled with three thermocouples.  Would take any board size I have.

 

Quick 870ESD: again, a cheaper brand and this one purports to reflow as well (not too bothered about that.)  Same sort of brand as Aoyue, more expensive and seems less controllable.

 

I don't think I could leave this post without an honourable mention to Zephyrtronics for their retro-industrial air-baths and a website built in the 1990s!  These look like good units but verging on the too expensive but the compact size may be worth considering.

 

Others I've looked at have been stupidly expensive or have very small heating areas.  So I seem to be leaning towards the Aoyue model but if anyone has alternative suggestions or use the Metcal PCT-100 then I'd definitely want to hear about it.

Parents

  • Hi Andrew,

     

    I have TMT-PH200 which was £216+VAT several years ago. It's ok*, not bad, a bit underpowered perhaps. It can reach solder melting temperature on its own, but takes a while.

    It is also usable as a pre-heater for just applying heat and then apply additional heat from top with a hot air tool too if desired. I have limited success with that system of working because I don't have a powerful hot air tool. Recently I have been working around that by using special low-temperature solder paste - good enough for prototypes.

    Looking at the ones in your list, I think the Aoyue will be underpowered given the area it covers. The Quick one I actually did purchase used (very similar, previous version model with rotary knob instead of buttons, but the rest looked identical), but it arrived damaged : ( and I had to return it. It uses an element encased in ceramic, inserted inside an aluminium plate. A drop had cracked it. So I'm still curious about if it would have been good or not had it worked. I also liked the cover that it had, to prevent accidentally touching.

    The PCT-1000PCT-1000 looks like it has plenty of power for the area! But has that cost : (

    The PCT-100 looks useful for pre-heating specific areas on a board (e.g. for a single IC). This should be responsive since it is targeting a small area and will be likely blowing hot air (whereas the others do not blow air, just rely on radiating). has a similar style pre-heater, he will have more experience in it to comment.

     

    * 'ok' meaning that I'm not going to explicitly recommend it, but having said that, I do use it, I guess it's a fair product for the price but I wouldn't recommend it for use in a work lab, only for home use.

Reply

  • Hi Andrew,

     

    I have TMT-PH200 which was £216+VAT several years ago. It's ok*, not bad, a bit underpowered perhaps. It can reach solder melting temperature on its own, but takes a while.

    It is also usable as a pre-heater for just applying heat and then apply additional heat from top with a hot air tool too if desired. I have limited success with that system of working because I don't have a powerful hot air tool. Recently I have been working around that by using special low-temperature solder paste - good enough for prototypes.

    Looking at the ones in your list, I think the Aoyue will be underpowered given the area it covers. The Quick one I actually did purchase used (very similar, previous version model with rotary knob instead of buttons, but the rest looked identical), but it arrived damaged : ( and I had to return it. It uses an element encased in ceramic, inserted inside an aluminium plate. A drop had cracked it. So I'm still curious about if it would have been good or not had it worked. I also liked the cover that it had, to prevent accidentally touching.

    The PCT-1000PCT-1000 looks like it has plenty of power for the area! But has that cost : (

    The PCT-100 looks useful for pre-heating specific areas on a board (e.g. for a single IC). This should be responsive since it is targeting a small area and will be likely blowing hot air (whereas the others do not blow air, just rely on radiating). has a similar style pre-heater, he will have more experience in it to comment.

     

    * 'ok' meaning that I'm not going to explicitly recommend it, but having said that, I do use it, I guess it's a fair product for the price but I wouldn't recommend it for use in a work lab, only for home use.

Children
  • in reply to shabaz

    Thanks Shabaz.

     

    If you read the "Technical Information", the Aoyue is a 850W 200mm x 250mm pre-heater; if you read its user manual it's a 1500W 310mm x 310mm pre-heater.  So who knows???  The Quick being damaged on receipt seems to be a not uncommon problem with these brands.  In both these cases, it's why I'm not too sure about acquiring one because it's not clear what I'm buying nor whether it's going to be good enough quality.  People seem to like the Quick hot air tool though.

     

    I'm mostly interested in pre-heating rather than reflow as I have a hot air gun that seems useful and works well for what I've used it for so far.  It's an Atten 853+ so not a high end brand, and one of those groups of brands like the Aoyue and Quick, so flies against what I've just said! 

     

    The TMT-PH200 still seems available in the UK for not much more than you paid for it and it looks suspiciously like an Aoyue Int 853A. I've seen a few reviews which have had to undertake a bit of repair work to get it right (actually, that's the model that I referred to in the YouTube video above.)  Perhaps if Thermaltronics are rebranding they at least sort out any problems.  They might have changed the styling of that now but these all seem to get copied in some form by bizarrely named Chinese companies.

     

    Hopefully Jan will comment later as the Metcal is the one I'm most interested in if it can work over a larger board area.