Our research lab is in the market for a desoldering station. My personal interest is in desoldering SMDs of various types, but being research it's hard to plan what we might want to do with it next so having some flexibility is useful. Often we want to preserve both the board and the component so something that won't cause damage would be useful. It's not going to be heavily used, but ideally something that's reliable and can be used by novices.
I see there are two types of station: those with special tips shaped for the particular component to be desoldered (TQFP64, SSOP28 etc) and hot air rework stations. Can anyone advise why to choose one over the other? The disadvantage of the special tips model is that either we invest in all of them, or have to order when we find we need them which will slow things down.
Anyone recommend any particular models/brands? Budget is about 2000ukp.
Thanks Theo