Beta reflow V2 controller

[Pedro147]

Hi guys. Not sure how well this forum is patronised these days but I figured that it was worth a try. I have the Beta reflow V2 oven controller that I successfully used for PCB reflowing some years back. I made many homemade drone flight control boards with it and was reasonably happy with it's performance See here viewtopic.php?f=11&t=250 I have moved on from that hobby to learning to fix Macbook laptop computers. A steep learning curve at my age for sure. I need to ultrasonically clean the logic boards after all the soldering repairs are done and then dry the boards in an oven at a 120°C stable temperature for about 15 min to remove the detergent / ionised water cleaning solution, particularly from under the BGA chips on the logic board. I am wondering if I can modify one of the temperature profiles to do this please ? I have totally forgotten how to use the oven controller and have also moved on from Windows 7 that I was using back then to Windows 10. From memory the temperature control file was an .ini file ? so I suppose that is what needs to be edited. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I would approach the controller company but they are not very forthcoming with any help after they take your money. Typical in this day and age I have found. Thanks in advance if anyone reads this and can help

[David John Barker]

Maybe this will help

http://www.firewing.info/pmwiki.php?n=FirewingUser.BETA-Reflow-Controller

[Pedro147]

Thanks again David, I downloaded this last time I asked for help here but I don't think that I got it to work. Must not have been trying hard enough so I'll give it another try.

So do I just edit the ini file to hold a steady temperature with a quite fast ramp up and then down when my preferred time period is up do I ? The other problem I see is that your GUI only goes up to 380 seconds whereas I need a total heating time of around 15 minutes. Is there any way around this and can I only use three stages of heating as in preheat (a fast ramp up to temp) soak (my 125 degrees C drying temperature) and dwell (which will be my ramp down time) Will it still work if I do this, assuming that the 15 mins of heating time I require can be achieved by modifying the GUI somehow ? Thanks for your time too, any help would be greatly appreciated as usual )

[David John Barker]

Yes, that's pretty much it. You can control:

• phttemp - pre-heat temperature set point
• phttime - time in pre-heat
• phtpwr - amount of power sent to oven heaters during pre-heat
  
• soaktemp - soak temperature set point
• soaktime = time in soak
• soakpwr = amount of power sent to the oven heaters during soak
  
• reflowtemp - reflow temperature set point
• reflowtime - time in reflow
• reflowpwr- amount of power sent to the oven heaters during reflow
  
• dwelltemp - dwell temperature set point
• dwelltime - time in dwell
• dwellpwr - amount of power sent to the oven heaters during dwell

[Pedro147]

Sorry to be a real PITA but you caught me mid edit. You are too fast for me David

The other problem I see is that your GUI only goes up to 380 seconds whereas I need a total heating time of around 15 minutes. Is there any way around this and can I only use three stages of heating as in preheat (a fast ramp up to temp) soak (my 125 degrees C drying temperature) and dwell (which will be my ramp down time) Will it still work if I do this, assuming that the 15 mins of heating time I require can be achieved by modifying the GUI somehow ? Thanks for your time too, any help would be greatly appreciated as usual )

[David John Barker]

> The other problem I see is that your GUI only goes up to 380 seconds

Where did you get that number from? Have you tried editing the *.ini file?

[Pedro147]

Oh sorry David no I was just going on the screen shots so I assume that the time period adjusts according to the figures used in the ini file.

Sorry about that, I didn't even think of that possibility. I am really not that smart and once again I appreciate all your work and spending time answering my questions.

[David John Barker]

No problem.

As you can see, the time line in the control panel will grow or shrink depending on the values held in the *.ini file.