Reflow Oven - No soak time zone

[HafizuddinGhazali]

Hello,
 
I'm doing an engineering study about reflow oven duration time, the problem is that my reflow oven does not have the "soak zone time", it goes from the preheat to the reflow zone without going to the soak zone (temperature increase slowly to reach reflow temp). So do i have to set the profile duration of the reflow oven  to include the soak zone (duration 180 second) from pre-heat to reflow zone or just duration from pre-heat zone to the reflow zone without soak zone (60 seconds).

Sorry for my bad english. I hope you can give me some tips. Thank you very much.

[Psi]

For hobby use and for small production runs at home most people don't worry about a reflow profiles.
The toaster oven is simply set to ~190-210C (usually using a DMM thermocouple) and the PCB is placed inside for 3-4 min.

So to answer your question no, you don't need to worry about setting a profile.

That said, exactly following the manufacture's reflow profile is the correct way to do it, it's just that most people dont bother and have zero issues.

[Kjelt]

Buy a cheap thermocouple datalogger and show (post picture on the forum) what the current profile of your oven looks like.
If you want to conduct a study you need it anyway.

[HafizuddinGhazali]

The thing is I will use this oven for my final year project of bachelor, so I thought that probably critical for me to know the parameter. Thanks brother.

The model of the oven is LPKF ProtoFlow S

https://www.lpkfusa.com/products/pcb_prototyping/smt_assembling/protoflow_s/.

[Psi]

Yes. If its for a academic project you want to do right.

[hermit]

Always do something as close to spec as possible unless you have good reason not to.  Unless your project is to test the specs then I'd say do what you can to follow them.  Now, if this means a lot of time, effort and money you don't have, then take the advice of those that say strict adherence has been shown to be unnecessary.