Solder Station

[Mikebits]

Thought I would give an update here on my rework station. The soldering iron works as expected, and with the large assortment of tips, I have been able to tackle most jobs, even had luck with very fine pitch smt IC's, and RF mmics.
The hot air blower works really well, and I have been able to remove SMT parts with a breeze (no pun intended). I even tackled removing a BGA part which was my first attempt ever. It took awhile to heat up underneath the PCB but I eventually got it, (I think I had temp set to 350 deg C). Anyways, attached photo shows a few parts that I was able to remove. This sure beats the old solder sucker method that I use to use before getting a rework station. The smt parts come off so quickly I am sure they are still functional. Well that's about it for now.

 

[dr pepper]

I think I'll have to get one of those instead of borrowing, I wondered if they were any good or not, theres nothing like an independant review.
I take it you dont work for yihua.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

I got a cheap Chinese unit and although the iron burnt out after two uses and the iron is not rated for what it was advertised for, it still works pretty well for small stuff like that after i got a replacement iron, and soldering with the hot air tool was a new experience. Using solder paste the solder just 'finds' the pins as it starts to melt into actual solder. Something you have to see, and there are vids on the web showing this action too.

 

[dr pepper]

I have a chinese temp controlled iron, its been working well for 6 months or so, it wont do big joints but its good for dinky stuff, I got a spare iron for 2 quid, less than a price of a tip for my xytronic.