DIY reflow oven

[Baliszoft]

Perhaps performance can be improved bigtime by adding a convecion fan and
replacing the controller with a more reliable and useful thing.

Yes, a fan would definitely improve its performance. It's not hopeless i think, but does not work right out of the box.

[Baliszoft]

I considered one of the 962 series units but saw many negative reviews, ranging from "poor heat distribution" to "caught fire" !   

I like the oven I bought as the extra height and 5 heater bars seem to give quite reasonable performance.

As it was cheap i gave it a try (i ordered it from the manufacturer directly more than a year ago). Propably the unit catching fire also had a fauly thermocouple connection, that way the temps can go very high. I got the small unit with 800w power, and measured 400C+ in such a situation.

[T4P]

Perhaps performance can be improved bigtime by adding a convecion fan and
replacing the controller with a more reliable and useful thing.

OK so that should be good but the last time i checked hot air ovens are VERY high-power and VERY huge plus thousands of dollars for "smaller" ones
Nope, convection ovens for me. Getting one that is around 1800W and if i read correctly 4 heaters 
3.5kW ... argh, need a 15amp plug

[Emil]

Yes, I've been wondering this.
They are about AU$250 delivered.
Any real advantages to the DIY approach?, and has someone standardised on a kit controller board?, or is each build a unique hack?
Just temped to get the commercial one at that price and save the dicking around...

Dave.

Hoping for a review and teardown

[JimmyM]

Perhaps performance can be improved bigtime by adding a convecion fan and
replacing the controller with a more reliable and useful thing.

OK so that should be good but the last time i checked hot air ovens are VERY high-power and VERY huge plus thousands of dollars for "smaller" ones
Nope, convection ovens for me. Getting one that is around 1800W and if i read correctly 4 heaters 
3.5kW ... argh, need a 15amp plug

You probably won't get the full 1800W from the oven though. Here in the states I had a 1500W oven that actually only ran at 1300W measured (house voltage is 112V not 120/125V). So I pulled the elements from a second oven and wired them in series with the existing 4 elements and run it on 220V for a functioning 2600W. With the convection fan running on 110V I get nice even heating and good ramp slope. But the heaters have a LOT of mass with respect to the air in the oven and therefore the internal temperature overshoots if I don't shut the heaters off before the setpoint.

[T4P]

Yeah, i can get ceramic heaters off somewhere for cheap 
The preheaters used in BGA rework stations