Soldering iron.

[mangoat]

i was sort of looking at a hot air reworking sort of station. anything half cheap but decent in that sort of range? id go 200 to 300$ probably if required.

 

[David_AVD]

There seems to be a fascination in the hobby with hot air stations and I really don't understand why. They are of almost zero use for the type of soldering anyone here would encounter.

If you're buying one to use the hot air for heat shrinking, buy a decent iron and a separate heat gun. I use a $30 paint stripper gun and find it gives better overall coverage (less of a hot spot) for shrinking.

Those cheap all-in-one combo (iron + hot air) stations are some of the biggest pieces of junk you'll ever find. Some of them use very dubious mains powered heaters for the hot air section and would never pass any standards.

 

[B_P_J]

hey David, I would love one for the SMD capabilities, my old neighbor showed me a lot about electronics and fixed so much stuff just by changing a few little things here and there, of course he knew what was the most likely thing to fail but I would like to give it a go, lol

 

[David_AVD]

We build and repair boards with SMD all the time and rarely use the hot air unit.

 

[B_P_J]

hmm ok now I like the sound of that? how do you do it? run the soldering iron across the connections? curious to know is it a fine art? take a long time to perfect?

 

[David_AVD]

For removing SMD packages with legs / pins that you can get to, low temperature solder (Chip Quik) and flux is fantastic.

We often use the same stuff for removing through-hole components, especially on multilayer boards.

There's a couple of ways to solder SMD parts. Fine solder wire (with a conventional iron) for larger pitch parts or solder paste (iron, hot air or oven) for smaller stuff. Tons of videos online about that.

 

[B_P_J]

well you got me on the path to finding it, thanks mate, maybe my gas soldering iron can do it, jokes would use it for those jobs, got the garage soldering iron, it works, not a hakko but one day

 

[David_AVD]

Gah! I've never used a gas soldering iron for anything other than an emergency or where I couldn't take a real iron to the job. Totally blunt instrument most of the time.

 

[B_P_J]

I need it, I install in the field, i.e Access Card Readers, Doors, etc and getting power is never easy, if not impossible,

 

[David_AVD]

Even worse than the gas iron is the battery ones. Never again.

 

[B_P_J]

lol, don't even talk about those ones, who ever thought they would work/sell