Hot Air Selective Soldering at the Benchtop! The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® “Selective Soldering” Hot Air Reflow System is a faster and environmentally cleaner answer for selective soldering operations for “mixed technology” boards than older methods like “drag” and “dip” soldering units that are messy and inconsistent. The ZT-6-MIL also eliminates labor-intensive, secondary hand soldering tasks. You'll want to throw your solder fountain and pots away. And it's the ultimate PC/104 connector solder system.

So Many Applications: The ZT-6 AirFountain® easily performs a wide range of preheating and reflow process applications ranging from Thru-Hole (Connectors, I.C.’s, Pin Grid Arrays) to SMD’s (QFP’s, PLCC’s, SO’s, Sockets) to even Ball Grid Arrays (BGA’s), Chip Scale Packages (CSP’s) and PC/104 card. And the ZT-6-MIL doubles up for rapid de-Soldering operations.

The Status Quo: Problems With Secondary Operations for Thru-Hole Connectors on SMT Assy's: A serious bottleneck to reflow production of “mixed assembly” PCB’s has been where a majority of your devices are SMT—but where a thru-hole connector still must also be reflowed. Many times, thru-hole devices are reflowed “off-line” in secondary operations.

The Patented ZT-6 AirFountain® is a Multi-Purpose Unit Providing Both Hot Air Solder Reflow for Secondary "Off Line" Production of PCB's and For DeSoldering Thru-Hole I.C.'s, Pin Grid Arrays & Connectors During Rework. The ZT-6 is Also a Powerful Prheating Device for Your PCB's.

The most common “off-line” selective soldering approaches are with (1) hand soldering which is costly and time-consuming with unpredictable results from technician to technician; or with (2) either “solder dipping” or “solder dragging” within hot pots or fountains of molten metal where the board must be masked and care must be taken to prevent bridging or spilling and where pin lengths can be limiting. Further, maintaining precision solder fountain heights is maddening, not to mention the thankless job of perpetually cleaning away dross from these devices!

A Clean & Rapid Solution for Your “Selective Soldering” Thru-Hole Soldering Operations: The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® can provide simultaneous reflow of hundreds of thru-hole pins or leads in less than one single minute in most cases. And it is important to point out just how clean the entire process is because reflow is achieved with selectively applied gentle forced-convection (hot air) from below. (See the illustrated flow charts below to appreciate how fast, easy and clean this process can be). Also of importance, it is possible to not only easily comply with, but also to even exceed the requirements of IPC Standard B-610 with regards to 75% fill and pin coverage!

De-Soldering Is Now Cleaner Than With A Solder Fountain! How About De-Soldering Hundreds of Thru-Hole Joints Simultaneously Within Less Than One Minute? The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® targets its temperature controlled, clean, forced-convection exactly where you need it...selectively! De-Soldering never was this easy. And it doesn’t require much imagination to see the advantages of the ZT-6 AirFountain® over a smelly, dirty and dross filled Solder Fountain...not much imagination at all!

The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® is loaded with many premium features including Digital Closed Loop, Microprocessor Temperature Control with Set/Read Functions and an Easy-to-Operate, Digital Count-Down Timer with Audible Beeping to insure tight reflow process control. Moreover, the ZT-6-MIL also features its own internal air supply so that no hoses, fittings, compressed air, or hook-ups are required. This remarkable production machine can be readily used at the production floor, the test lab, an engineer’s desk, or even in an executive conference room!

The construction of the ZT-6-MIL is ESD Safe and is assembled within a durable, yet lightweight steel casing. The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® is also MIL-Spec compliant and is currently being used by the U.S. Department of Defense in applications ranging from high reliability (aerospace and military concerns) to commercial (consumer product and appliance manufacturing). Unlike older methods such as messy solder-pot-dipping, time-consuming hand-soldering and problematic desoldering operations, the ZT-6-MIL, with its clean, non-contact convective reflow, makes thru-hole connector work, secondary operations, and even rework a breeze!

A Brief History: The ZT-6-MIL AirFountain® was originally developed to address problems with the required secondary operations for a difficult SMT PCB Assy. that had a 4-row thru-hole connector with 104 gold pins where solder was not touch the gold pins. This made hand-soldering tedious and impractical due to the difficulty of reaching within 4 rows of pins and of avoiding contaminating the gold pins with solder. However, the ZT-6-MIL easily resolved the issue reflowing all pins in seconds!

Newer Applications From Versatility: It didn't take too long before many  more utilities for the ZT-6-MIL became readily apparent for many PCB tasks. The ZT-6-MIL brings a wide range of applications from Thru-Hole to SMT; from Preheating to Reflow; and from Soldering to De-Soldering tasks. Also, the ZT-6-MIL easily transforms into a powerful bottomside preheating unit by lowering the temp to traditional "soak levels" of 100°C to 170°C. With so many utilities and applications, shouldn't there be a AirFountain® at your bench?