Some design decisions on manufacturing tools actually go away you scratching your head for some time, as not too long ago occurred to [Chris Cecil] when the belt on a reflow oven’s conveyer snapped. Though the answer appears easy sufficient, getting a brand new belt on the factor would contain primarily taking the complete machine aside, earlier than reassembling it once more. Thus the frayed belt went by way of the oven again and again till throughout a latest manufacturing run of Smoothieboard controller boards till [Chris] heard a humorous noise and the conveyer floor to a halt.

Transferring the conveyer by hand type of labored, however with a extra everlasting repair urgently wanted to complete the manufacturing run, two stepper motors took the place of the belt, which simply left driving these steppers to maintain the conveyer transferring in sync. Missing a easy Arduino board to toss at it, and with a Smoothieboard being absolute overkill, [Chris] figured {that a} humble NE555 timer IC must do the job simply as nicely.

Utilizing a challenge on Hackaday.io by [KushagraK7] as the place to begin, and a 1992-vintage NE555 IC harvested from an outdated challenge, [Chris] managed to place collectively a primary stepper driver that makes use of the NE555 to supply the timing sign. Along with restoring primary performance like beginning and stopping the conveyer belt, [Chris] added a brand new function with the reversing of the conveyer path. Together with some cobbled collectively elements to bodily rotate the conveyer’s two rollers, it restored the reflow oven to working situation.

And sooner or later the prototyped driver board might be up to date to a correct PCB. It’s solely momentary, in any case 🙂