The trouble with the T-962 is that the stock units heat so unevenly that you can scorch the center of the board while getting cold solder joints near the edges.
I have one of those with the mods for improved firmware and better thermocouple references. It's OK. The firmware runs the fan all the time, even during heating, which improves the heat distribution. There's a better mod which adds a second fan.
A number of companies in China made clones of those things, but none of them seem to have done a redesign to make a better one at roughly the same price. Now there seems to be a new generation of these things, with more fan power. That's a step forward. No idea if they're any good. (There are reflow oven review sites, as bogus as mattress review sites.) There ought to be a good $200 reflow oven by now.
You can buy good small reflow ovens from the US and Germany, but prices are upwards of US$3000.
There are relatively affordable vapor phase ovens- at $WORK I arranged the purchase of Vapor Phase One- it works really well. However, some people are more sensitive to the resulting smell.
My issue with vapor-phase is that it tends to cause a lot of tombstoned or sleeping components. It's pretty good for multi-leg components like power ICs and processors and BGA components, but not so good on two-conductor resistors, capacitors, jumpers, etc. This is mostly because with vapor-phase you can't really control the thermal profile of the reflow.
My understanding is that Galden vapor is dense, so you get a layer of hot vapor near the fluid, with lower temperature further from fluid (where there is less vapor)- the required thermal profile is maintained by controlling position of the boards..
From what I gathered- just dislike, mixed with some concerns. I didn't smell anything apart from the usual flux smell, but I have very little sense of smell.
The trouble with the T-962 is that the stock units heat so unevenly that you can scorch the center of the board while getting cold solder joints near the edges.
I have one of those with the mods for improved firmware and better thermocouple references. It's OK. The firmware runs the fan all the time, even during heating, which improves the heat distribution. There's a better mod which adds a second fan.
A number of companies in China made clones of those things, but none of them seem to have done a redesign to make a better one at roughly the same price. Now there seems to be a new generation of these things, with more fan power. That's a step forward. No idea if they're any good. (There are reflow oven review sites, as bogus as mattress review sites.) There ought to be a good $200 reflow oven by now.
You can buy good small reflow ovens from the US and Germany, but prices are upwards of US$3000.