Hot air station recommendations

I'm currently looking for an affordable hot air station for the bench. One that came up often in my searches was this one:

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Can anyone recommend this one, or perhaps have a better alternative?

Thanks.

Reply to
JW
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It's probably worth at least looking over at Howard Electronics for some baseline pricing

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The hot air stations are under 'SMD Rework'.

Several on-line sites have similar items, including MPJA, Web-Tronics, Sparkfun, and (of course) Amazon.

The surface similarity is suggestive but I don't know of a site that's published a real tear-down and comparison of one or more name-brand stations and 'house'-branded models.

FWIW, my home bench sports a Xytronic 850D that I've been pretty happy with.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

I have one of those. It's not bad, but you should know it's not temperature controlled. The heater control only adjusts the duty cycle of the heater. There's no thermostat, or temperature display. This means that the air temperature will vary with air flow. Andy Cuffe

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Reply to
Andy Cuffe

I've been looking into this too, and a friend of mine who is a self employed professional electronics designer, has highly recommended this one, which he has had for some time. It is used daily, and he reckons that it represents exceptional value for money

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Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Phew. $350 and up. That's a bit over my budget there.

Thanks.

Reply to
JW

Thanks Arfa, but there's none on Ebay at the moment here in the US. Andy got me thinking about temperature control, though. So I took another look and came up with this one:

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It has a digital readout which I assume is for temperature monitoring. Has anyone used one of these?

Reply to
JW

Found a review.

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All in all the author appeared satisfied, and you can't beat the price.

Reply to
JW

Another one that looks pretty good:

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Comes with an arm to hold the nozzle which could be very useful, seeing as how my hand's not as steady as it used to be. :)

Reply to
JW

The Hakko 850D is the same as the 850, but is temperature controlled. This listing has finished, but he had two for sale, and only sold one.

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Andy Cuffe

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com

Reply to
Andy Cuffe

What are you using now? I don't do a lot of rework but one of my heat guns (for shrink tubing) has some small nozzles, and it works well for removing chips. I douse the offender liberally in liquid flux first. Often there are other small components nearby so I'll make a little cardboard heat shield with a window cut out of it.

I don't see the advantage of a fancy schmancy dedicated rework station. As far as digital readouts and temperature control, I'm a bah-humbug skeptic. You only have one choice anyway, and that's to get the thing hot enough to melt the solder.

Reply to
Smitty Two

Separating the heater from the blower permits a bit more agility, rather on the order of using a pencil iron versus a two-pound soldering gun.

The closed-loop temperature control is useful to allow varying the air flow rate without also affecting the air temp.

I guess it comes down to convenience. For folks who only do onsie-twosie surface mount reworks, it may make more sense to skip the hot air altogether and use the ChipQuik technique

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The stuff really works, but it gets pricey for large quantity use.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

Stan Rubenstein are a very good source for all solder related items, fast shipping USA

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I have the Aoyue station, I wish I had bought the one with temp readout but I just wanted to see if they were any good, no problems so far, does its job. JC

Reply to
Archon

I've seen that stuff before, but never tried it. I think I'll get some though, and have it on hand for the next time I need it. Thanks for the reminder.

Reply to
Smitty Two

Ended up getting this one. Using the one of standard single nozzles it came with I was able to remove a 44 pin PLCC with no problems. Tried using the same nozzle to remove a 84 pin flat pack, but this didn't work, so I borrowed a nozzle specifically for that package from the place I work that has a Hakko and it worked perfectly. (Good to know that Hakko nozzles are interchangeable with this station.) I checked its output temperature with a thermocouple and the readings were within 2c of the set temperature of the station. No lifted pads or circuit board damage so far. Overall for the $100 price I'm quite happy with the station, and shipping was fast as well.

Reply to
JW

as

If salvaging , rather than replacing. Make a mask so you can blast the body of the IC, not the pins, before desoldering

-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

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Reply to
N_Cook

blast with freezer spray that is

Reply to
N_Cook

Well, for the 84 pin flat pack, I was transferring one of the A/D converters from a scrap Tek TDS540 ACQ board to a TDS544A being repaired. Didn't seem to hurt it, but YMMV.

Reply to
JW

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