Hot air station recommendations for mainly heatshrink work

[adiaz]

Hello! I’m looking for something that works well. This would be mainly for heatshrink/audio cable construction. I don’t need something pricey like Metcal/JBC. Just want to get away from the butane versions.

Thanks!!

[bdunham7]

https://www.amazon.com/858D-Desoldering-Station-Welding-Soldering/dp/B092J9QCH1

[rdl]

For just heatshrink a regular heat gun could be cheaper. Just make sure it has a low enough temperature setting.

[Shock]

An 858D type should be plenty, easy to use/control and ok for general electronics. You can also buy an appropriate sized tip and squash into shape. Don't leave these plugged into the wall as they could turn on during failure. It pays to inspect the stations mains and ground/earth wiring as well. But otherwise a good tool for it. Shop around on price.

[GLouie]

For ordinary audio cable heatshrinking, I'm with rdl. Just a standard hardware store heat gun is fine, $30. It's supposed to get hot enough to burn off paint, you learn to move the blast away to not burn the goods.

[bdunham7]

For ordinary audio cable heatshrinking, I'm with rdl. Just a standard hardware store heat gun is fine, $30. It's supposed to get hot enough to burn off paint, you learn to move the blast away to not burn the goods.

I have both a cheap 858D and a pretty good paint-stripping type gun.  The 858D is somewhere between 200 and 300 times as handy for heatshrinking without lighting your work on fire.  Maybe not as fast, though.

[ygi]

If you're going for the cheap stuff, why not purpose built stuff like that: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003432087255.html  (first link I found that sells the 110V version)

It's a small form factor and not hot enough to melt anything by accident.

[Psi]

The really cheap hot air guns can be a bit of a fire hazard. They're always one fan failure away from combustion since the element is burning up much more power than it could ever withstand without the airflow.
Some of the Atten 858 clones have a DPDT switch where one set of contacts is fan on/off and the other controls the heating.
So if one side of the switch fails you can lose cooling but it's still running the heater.

As long as you're in the room or nearby its fine, but don't leave them unattended.