Desoldering Equipment

[immol8]

hi! i was wondering what kind of equipment do you guys have for desoldering. does anybody have a desoldering station?

[tp4tissue]

You don't need an expensive iron, unless you plan to do many more projects in the future..

But to do a "desoldering" of any keyboard at all.. You'll want some soldering wick, AND possibly a desoldering pump..

many utube vids on how to use both..


You NEED BOTH.. wick and pump..  for desoldering..     if you're just mostly soldering, you can get away without the wick.

[fohat.digs]

The totally cheap and simple way is this:

http://www.cnaweb.com/desoldering-pump.aspx?gclid=CL3u2p606cQCFRHl7Aod3jYAIA

But it won't work for more than a few keyboards' worth of work.

For a bit more money, but still cheap, these are much cleaner and more effective:

http://www.radioshack.com/radioshack-45-watt-desoldering-iron/6402060.html#.VSaJbpOK7Yg

[Dreamre]

I got the Hakko FR-300 desoldering gun:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fr300.html

Money well spent. Wish I got this way before I got into keyboards, but it does save you A LOT of time. It does seem a lot initially, but if you're desoldering numerous boards, it's well worth it.

[immol8]

You don't need an expensive iron, unless you plan to do many more projects in the future..

But to do a "desoldering" of any keyboard at all.. You'll want some soldering wick, AND possibly a desoldering pump..

many utube vids on how to use both..


You NEED BOTH.. wick and pump..  for desoldering..     if you're just mostly soldering, you can get away without the wick.

I used to solder some stuff for class... and all i used was a cheap soldering iron and a sponge. I've never actually desoldered before, but it seems pretty simple... I'm very concerned about melting parts of the pcb... so a soldering wick would probably be very useful. I understand that i probably don't need anything expensive but i've been looking at a few desoldering stations and i find it very convenient to have the tools i'll need in one package.

The totally cheap and simple way is this:

http://www.cnaweb.com/desoldering-pump.aspx?gclid=CL3u2p606cQCFRHl7Aod3jYAIA

But it won't work for more than a few keyboards' worth of work.

For a bit more money, but still cheap, these are much cleaner and more effective:

http://www.radioshack.com/radioshack-45-watt-desoldering-iron/6402060.html#.VSaJbpOK7Yg

ooo i've seen a few videos of people using those soldering pumps... radioshack is still around?  where does the solder go in that iron?

I got the Hakko FR-300 desoldering gun:

http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_fr300.html

Money well spent. Wish I got this way before I got into keyboards, but it does save you A LOT of time. It does seem a lot initially, but if you're desoldering numerous boards, it's well worth it.

I was looking at the hakko fr-300, but i thought it was kind of weird to hold a soldering iron like a gun. this may seem a little extreme, but i really like how everything is packaged in the hakko fm-240 and the weller wxd2020 kit. i do have a few projects in mind (actually they're in my sketch book) that'll help with the cost of these desolderstations.

[Parak]

If you have that kind of cash to spend on a station, and you don't have compressed air, I'd suggest Pace MBT-301, having one myself. The only downside is that the desoldering tool takes a fair amount to heat up compared to the other stations, but makes up for it in very cheap tips. JBC is a bit better, but a fair amount more expensive for their DDSE, plus the tip costs are at least about 2.5x as much.

With compressed air, I'd go for a Metcal MX 5251. Excellent soldering and especially desoldering power at a very reasonable price.

Weller WX stations look good on paper, but I have concerns with their usage of 4 or 5 different handpieces for regular soldering, where everyone else uses 1 or at most 2 (for a micro wand type). There were some concerns on the forums with their wands randomly going into standby. I'd still would love to have one for direct comparison against the Pace/Metcal/JBC though

[bpiphany]

I've posted a couple of times about it in the soldering thread, but I got myself a cheap de-soldering station (well ~<$100) a while back. https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=42824.msg1598873#msg1598873 It has it's perks, including clogging up easily if not handled the right way. I still consider it a very good buy. Almost anything with pins simply falls out on its own.