Powerful

Citation

(2000), "Powerful", Soldering & Surface Mount Technology, Vol. 12 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ssmt.2000.21912aad.022

Powerful

Powerful "Profile Wizard" hardware/software combination simplifies reflow process control

Keywords: Saunders Technology, Reflow, Process control, Software

Saunders Technology's unique Profile Wizard brings together a reliable thermal sensing concept plus a sophisticated software tool to simplify reflow soldering process control and help process engineers' track oven performance. With Profile Wizard, keeping the reflow process under control is easy, as is maintaining product quality and high yields, all without the cost of "golden" boards.

Profile Wizard is a repeatable, reliable, reference standard for monitoring oven thermal profiles. Its hardware consists of an array of sensors that will ride on an oven's belt or edge rail conveyor to profile the edges and center of the oven and provide a complete thermal picture. Profile Wizard records optimized thermal processing profiles, then compares them minutes, hours, or days later to oven performance, letting the operator know of any variations in temperature profile so that the process can be kept consistently under control.

The other half of Profile Wizard is its powerful yet easy to use software tool. With it, oven, profiler and process parameters can be entered in just a few minutes, with simple, intuitive screens. Data can be password protected. The operator can set profile tolerance bands for the process. After each run, the software precisely compares the current profile with the reference profile, and a screen displays a green, yellow, or red banner to show process status. Troubleshooting an oven problem is easy as well.

Profile Wizard's operating system is Windows 95, 98 and NT, and the system will work with any thermal profiler with a data export function. Thermal profiles for Profile Wizard are similar to an instrumented circuit board for easy interpretation. For more information, contact Saunders Technology, Inc. at 19 Clinton Drive, Hollis, NH 03049. Tel: (603) 881 3330; Fax: (603) 881-3332; Web site at www.saunderstech.com