The days of cheap energy are gone and in this economic environment, we are all looking to consume less and cut costs! You can start looking for energy savings in your solder paste specification and the component layout of your PCBs. Using simpler designed products with fewer components is an excellent way to begin. This, of course, is not always an option, especially for contract manufacturers.
What if your profiling software can reduce your oven’s energy consumption, while maintaining a process that’s in spec? I can do this by defining the minimum allowable conveyor speed for the reflow oven. Many engineers will set the conveyor to be a little faster than the bottleneck on their SMT line. Also, the engineer will define how much of their process window can be used or how close to the limits of their specification are they willing to run their process.
In a few seconds, your profiling software searches billions of combinations. It will settle on a profile that uses the lowest oven set points.
