GD with ecan help

Originally posted by MrMimizu on 7-18-07 HERE.

I got myself an ecan and a GD.
I'm looking at soldering that ring around the bottom of the GD to the bottom of the ecan and then adding a small blob of solder to the bottom centre so that my battery will touch the round contact at the bottom.
At that point, I only need to connect the LED+ and LED- and I can ignore the VIN, is that correct?
Also, what is the best way to solder the GD onto the ecan?
I have a soldering iron and some solder. No paste or any clue on how to reflow solder or what temps I can reflow solder at before killing the GD.
If someone can tell me how to easily reflow solder with a toaster oven or something that most would have at home, that would be great.

Originally posted by dat2zip on 7-18-07 HERE.

MrMimizu said:

I got myself an ecan and a GD.
I'm looking at soldering that ring around the bottom of the GD to the bottom of the ecan and then adding a small blob of solder to the bottom centre so that my battery will touch the round contact at the bottom.
At that point, I only need to connect the LED+ and LED- and I can ignore the VIN, is that correct?
Also, what is the best way to solder the GD onto the ecan?
I have a soldering iron and some solder. No paste or any clue on how to reflow solder or what temps I can reflow solder at before killing the GD.
If someone can tell me how to easily reflow solder with a toaster oven or something that most would have at home, that would be great.

Click to expand...

You have all the information correct.
You can use a toaster over. I've used a separate toaster oven in the garage for this for some time now. Never use one that will also be cooking food that you plan on consuming.
For me, the toaster elements are like my stove. The initial rise to temperature can tend to overshoot as the coils or elements take a while to cool down. I do it in two steps. I turn the dial to 200F and when the red glowing coils start unglowing I know it's hit 200F or so. I then turn the temp dial to 350F and then turn the manual timer to 5 minutes and let it cook for 5 minutes.
You will need to do your own calibration on your toaster oven to see how it works and if different adjust accordingly.
You can take the sheet tray and put something aluminum similar to the ecan in there and put a small strip of solder on it and see when it melts. That will give you a basic idea where your oven temp needs to be.
You can probably smash the solder wire down flat and make a one turn coil at the bottom of the ecan and then place the converter board on top of the coil.
If you have a regular hair dryer, you can try heating it with that and look for the flux to burn and smoke. If you see it smoking then the flux/solder has melted.
Wayne