Author Topic: A new soldering and desoldering station  (Read 6177 times)

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Offline akisTopic starter

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A new soldering and desoldering station
« on: April 22, 2016, 07:27:29 am »
After a bad experience with the previous station which uses a 5-pin plug but only 3 wires as the soldering iron does NOT have a thermocouple (the extra pins on the plug are to make you think you are buying a great machine), I am looking to buy a new station. I was also looking for a desoldering iron, never used one, I was hoping it would be like an ordinary iron except it would incorporate some sort of vacuum pump to suck the melted solder away?
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2016, 06:39:12 pm »
what? post a picture of your fake 5 pin iron please
even the hobbyking 16euro 936 clone does proper temperature control
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
My fireplace is on fire, but in all the wrong places.
 

Offline nanofrog

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2016, 07:29:15 pm »
As per a desolder iron, in it's most basic sense, it's a heated hollow tip that gets a vacuum applied when triggered (hand operated squeeze bulb, or foot switch/iron switch that operates either a electrically driven vacuum pump or a Venturi tube that's attached to compressed air). Hopefully, there's temperature control tied to the heater.  :P

For specifics, namely any kind of recommendation, what are you wanting to do exactly for desoldering (PTH?, SMD?, both? and how much?)?
And what's your budget?
 

Offline akisTopic starter

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2016, 07:49:39 pm »
what? post a picture of your fake 5 pin iron please
even the hobbyking 16euro 936 clone does proper temperature control

Sure. As you can see there are only two wires into the soldering iron and on the plug side two pins have been shorted together...

 

Offline akisTopic starter

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2016, 07:52:56 pm »
As per a desolder iron, in it's most basic sense, it's a heated hollow tip that gets a vacuum applied when triggered (hand operated squeeze bulb, or foot switch/iron switch that operates either a electrically driven vacuum pump or a Venturi tube that's attached to compressed air). Hopefully, there's temperature control tied to the heater.  :P

For specifics, namely any kind of recommendation, what are you wanting to do exactly for desoldering (PTH?, SMD?, both? and how much?)?
And what's your budget?

I do not do SMD yet. Maybe never. But on occasion I need to remove components and it is hard/impossible to operate and use the old fashioned vacuum desoldering tool. You'd need an extra pair of hands to try and hold everything together and even then ...
 

Offline nanofrog

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2016, 09:44:01 pm »
I do not do SMD yet. Maybe never. But on occasion I need to remove components and it is hard/impossible to operate and use the old fashioned vacuum desoldering tool. You'd need an extra pair of hands to try and hold everything together and even then ...
I'm not sure if this statement ^ is primarily referencing SMD or PTH, I presume you meant the latter and will start on that premise. I'm not sure if it's technique, lack of a good work holding vise, solder sucker, or some combination that's giving you the biggest hassle. :-// Might have some tips with more specifics (easier on the budget vs. desolder station too).  ;)

FWIW, I found I use my hot air station far more frequently than my solder sucker. :o ;D Besides, a hot air station and a good pair of tweezers/pliers can even be used for PTH component removal (rather nice on SIP or DIP). You'll still need to clean things up with braid and/or a solder sucker of course, but you'd have to go through a substantial amount of braid before it would add up to the cost of a desolder station.  :-DD

Even the number of uses you can find for hot air might actually surprise you. Heat shrink probably being the most obvious, but other things like adhesive removal (including mastic & labels), paint removal, softening up screws that have too much thread locker on them, massaging plastic enclosures to fit a project if say one capacitor is 1 - 2mm too tall ( :palm:), ...

So unless you're doing a lot of PTH desoldering, I don't see it as the best use of lab funds.

If you do need a desolder station but don't have a small fortune to spend, perhaps you might consider Hakko FR-300 (would expect better performance than say a Zhongdi desolder station), if you'd be OK with the all-in-one gun style format.  :-//  Otherwise check out reviews of the Zhongdi ZD985 (review & teardown thread).

Hope this helps.  :)

* Thinking in terms of ability to develop sufficient vacuum pressure, is easier to clean (solder doesn't solidify in the tube before reaching the catch chamber), and can easily get spares & consumables.

Dave even covered it in Video #542


« Last Edit: April 22, 2016, 09:47:18 pm by nanofrog »
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2016, 04:24:03 am »
what? post a picture of your fake 5 pin iron please
even the hobbyking 16euro 936 clone does proper temperature control

Sure. As you can see there are only two wires into the soldering iron and on the plug side two pins have been shorted together...

aaaah, sensor is in series with the heater, station pauses heating and measures resistance, this is less typical, not a direct hakko ripoff, type of heater
Atten At936b, AT201D, AT938D all use this
so do atten clones/rebrands like Conrad TOOLCRAFT ST-80A, Tenma 21-10120/21-10115
so does your clone of Atten AT938D

it is absolutely ok


on occasion I need to remove components and it is hard/impossible to operate and use the old fashioned vacuum desoldering tool. You'd need an extra pair of hands to try and hold everything together and even then ...

looking at the picture im guessing tip is the problem, get a big flat one, or concave soldering tip (ones meant for drag soldering), plus a secret to good desoldering is adding more fresh solder first

Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
My fireplace is on fire, but in all the wrong places.
 

Offline akisTopic starter

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2016, 07:48:33 am »

aaaah, sensor is in series with the heater, station pauses heating and measures resistance, this is less typical, not a direct hakko ripoff, type of heater
Atten At936b, AT201D, AT938D all use this
so do atten clones/rebrands like Conrad TOOLCRAFT ST-80A, Tenma 21-10120/21-10115
so does your clone of Atten AT938D

it is absolutely ok


Well, it is not working very well. The temperature is not what it says and fluctuates +/-50C - whatever it thinks measures it does it badly. I guess, that there is no sensor in series. Rather some "genius" has noticed that the heater's resistance increased (or decreased) with temperature and thought "hey we can save a NTC resistor as well as two wires inside the cable, hurray!"....
 

Offline Rasz

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2016, 07:53:17 am »
no, more likely your unit is defective
return it, or open it up if you cant return it, we can help you fix it
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
My fireplace is on fire, but in all the wrong places.
 

Offline Raj

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Re: A new soldering and desoldering station
« Reply #9 on: May 21, 2016, 03:43:16 pm »
for me ,a fan regulator with triac changed to heavier one along with non contact thermo meter has been enough for me

plus, I use multiple irons. cause high thermal capacity irons are heavy and low thermal capacity irons sometimes are unable to melt solder even when connected directly
 


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