dip-fluxer: any ideas on a low-budget kludge?

[WayOutWest]

I found a video of exactly the kind of dip-fluxer I've been trying to make (link should jump to 0:29 where they demo it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECBTjZPoki8#t=0m29s

Obviously this think costs scads of cash. Has anybody seen any sort of more reasonably-priced device that might be pressed into similar service? A cooking implement of some kind, perhaps?

Surely devices like this are used in other industries that aren't so overfunded. If you've seen one, let me know what it's called so I can investigate.

[Mark Harris]

Very cool, that actually looks pretty similar to build too. You'd just need a motor for rotating the plate around, you could use a silicone kitchen spatula or squeegee mounted to a frame for the spreader. It looks really really basic. Then you'd just need to make it rotate each time you need fresh flux. It looks like they have pockets machined into the plate for getting the correct paste thickness.. again that shouldnt be hard to do at all. A 1/4-1/2" metal plate that size is only $15-30? A stepper motor is cheap as can be, a dc motor even cheaper (obviously no control on that though.. but you could put indents on the side of the plate for a microswitch to trip on)... hell for control you could even use something like the Useless Box circuit and a dc motor, with a detent or rise at each half. Then the pick and place could just press a button to cause it to automatically rotate itself until it hits the stop. If you have a cnc mill or good cnc router, this should be able to get knocked up for under $50.

[WayOutWest]

You'd just need a motor for rotating the plate around, you could use a silicone kitchen spatula or squeegee mounted to a frame for the spreader.

It's actually really hard, kinda like how making a one-off bespoke windshield wiper is really hard -- go ahead try, it won't be nearly as good or reliable as the $10 ones you can buy at a truck stop.

Rubber blades and high-viscosity fluids aren't something most people deal with, so the tools and materials are pretty specialized.

This is one of those things where it's much easier to find a mass-produced gizmo that already does something similar. I'll keep looking.