Abstract: A soldering apparatus comprises at least one soldering iron (19) with a heating element (21) and a regulating circuit including a temperature sensor (22) for regulating the working temperature of the soldering iron (19) to a predeterminable desired value (51). The apparatus is characterized by a circuit (45) connected to the soldering unit (19) which at least temporarily stores values corresponding to a time-dependent temperature plot for the soldering iron (19), and also by a monitoring circuit (14) which is connected to the memory circuit. The monitoring circuit monitors during the operation of the soldering iron, from the stored values for the temperature plot, determines whether the temperature undergoes an excursion beneath or above predeterminable upper and lower temperature limits (52, 53) and initiates an alarm signal when the duration of the excursion exceeds a predetermined value.

Abstract: An apparatus for soldering workpieces (29) has a main solder bath (20) with main solder wave (15) and the workpiece (29) is brought into contact with the surface of the main solder wave. The surface can be modulated by means of at least one additional solder outlet or inlet nozzle (11), in order to solder even densely packed circuit boards without problem and with complete wetting of all solder locations (FIG. 1).

Abstract: Workpieces 11 carrying electronic components 17 are soldered using an automatic soldering machine. In this machine the circuit boards 11 are transported between treatment stations such as a fluxing station I, a drying station II and a soldering station III. The arrangement is such that the circuit boards 11 are separated from the forwarding system 1, 2 at the treatment stations and are either held at rest during treatment or are caused to execute a movement matched to the treatment but independent of the movement of the forwarding system. In this way there is no need to specially tailor the automatic soldering machine to the particular workpiece to be soldered. Instead, a wide variety of different workpieces can be treated efficiently by one and the same soldering machine simply by coding the workpieces and by arranging the machine so that preprogrammed treatments can be carried out in dependence on the coding on the workpieces.