• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

De-soldering Impossible Untouchable Old Solder?

Allen.. appreciated.. should have said return the base station... I would have returned the entire unit for another. I've worked for companies with assembly lines however we had factory rated power not some house hold outlet. There are various soldering stations to meet near every expectations.

I knew one of the best soldering gals in history.. yes a woman certified trainer and manager! She said the biggest issue was positioning the iron and secondly cleaning tip and not dropping the damned thing. She imposed by demand every gun was tethered to a station so if you let go the rewind would put the head to it's station. just an inch or so off the pcb and stationed about foot. Yup engineers agreed that her soldering was per solder melt temp. even kester wanted to know LOL :D

I never have to push any soldering iron into a joint. holding sure but 'hovering' once wet? solder suck it. My technique is like a humming bird to chip away at the old crap? new stuff? one second or less on this small ss stuff. Maybe hook your guns up to a regulated p.s. I do understand there are brown outs in the bay area.
:D
 
Ha ha, I am very picky when comes to soldering iron. I am born cheap, one of my signal generator is only $56 new, the other is a beat up Wavetek for working on amp. I use an old scope.......BUT when comes to soldering iron, I want nothing but the best. Don't laugh, I have all 3 soldering iron on my little table ( so called bench). This is a typical picture how my table looks like every day. At this moment, I am working on big components, so the Metcal stay at the background. But if I work on SMD, they will trade places.
3 Soldering stations.JPG



Then when I want to solder wires onto the thick metal chassis like those old Fender guitar amps, even the Weller will not do, I pull out my big gun, the big Weller soldering iron that is like 100W or over, it's like a cannon. Soldering irons make or break the project. You ruin the pcb with a slow weak iron.
 
Alan,please believe me,I am NOT trying to bust your ass on this,but I can't help but notice that you have a real hate-on for Hakko.You malign their designs and quality constantly,and I have to tell you,you are seriously out of line on this point.

The company is,in reality,a manufacturer of top-level soldering and rework equipment,and many of it's products easily rival the top line competition. And that includes Pace,Metcal etc.

The fact is,as myself and many other users have come to realize,the Hakko FX-888D is one of the best performing and least costly soldering stations on the market.
And it is also probably the most often counterfeited product on the market,after Rolex watches. The only people not satisfied with this product are the owners of the fake ones.Although the looks aren't for everybody,this unit has proven itself to be bulletproof,comfortable and easy to use.The genuine tips last forever.

My one criticism of this unit is that the manufacturer omitted certain critical details in the paper operators manual.The full manual is available on their website.
The simple fact of the matter is that by not reading the (full) manual,and just randomly pushing buttons without actually knowing what you are doing,it is very easy to mess up the units programming,which will result in poor operation.Thankfully,returning things to normal is easy.

And unfortunately if,as you have said, you are purchasing Hakko products through Amazon and not a valid Hakko distributor,you are likely buying fakes.Yes,they appear to be absolutely identical to the originals,but they are not..And their performance is indeed subpar in all respects.This is why there is often a disparity in pricing.Are you perhaps comparing apples with oranges?

Aoyue does in fact knock off Hakko products,and their performance is abysmal by comparison. The Aoyue tips and heaters are indeed cheap,and there is a reason for that: They are crap.Period. That is why they are cheap. At some point,you need to realize that you get what you pay for.......

My own FX888D is,quite frankly,one of the best stations I have ever used in any application,both as a hobbyist AND as a professional.I did a great deal of research on the internet on this unit before purchasing one. The ''How to spot a fake'' threads and videos are numerous, and many are rather impressive in delving into the details.


Cheers,
Art

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the Hakko Corporation.
 
absolon said:
But that won't stop you from trying...........
Click to expand...
Because I am very allergic to the fume and I have no choice. I looked and Weller and Metcal does not make soldering iron with fume suction.

I even thought about modifying either the Weller or Metcal gun to adapt the suction host of the Aoyue on the gun, but I hate to modify test equipment and it's not particular easy.
 
Last edited:
arts said:
Alan,please believe me,I am NOT trying to bust your ass on this,but I can't help but notice that you have a real hate-on for Hakko.You malign their designs and quality constantly,and I have to tell you,you are seriously out of line on this point.

The company is,in reality,a manufacturer of top-level soldering and rework equipment,and many of it's products easily rival the top line competition. And that includes Pace,Metcal etc.

The fact is,as myself and many other users have come to realize,the Hakko FX-888D is one of the best performing and least costly soldering stations on the market.
And it is also probably the most often counterfeited product on the market,after Rolex watches. The only people not satisfied with this product are the owners of the fake ones.Although the looks aren't for everybody,this unit has proven itself to be bulletproof,comfortable and easy to use.The genuine tips last forever.

My one criticism of this unit is that the manufacturer omitted certain critical details in the paper operators manual.The full manual is available on their website.
The simple fact of the matter is that by not reading the (full) manual,and just randomly pushing buttons without actually knowing what you are doing,it is very easy to mess up the units programming,which will result in poor operation.Thankfully,returning things to normal is easy.

And unfortunately if,as you have said, you are purchasing Hakko products through Amazon and not a valid Hakko distributor,you are likely buying fakes.Yes,they appear to be absolutely identical to the originals,but they are not..And their performance is indeed subpar in all respects.This is why there is often a disparity in pricing.Are you perhaps comparing apples with oranges?

Aoyue does in fact knock off Hakko products,and their performance is abysmal by comparison. The Aoyue tips and heaters are indeed cheap,and there is a reason for that: They are crap.Period. That is why they are cheap. At some point,you need to realize that you get what you pay for.......

My own FX888D is,quite frankly,one of the best stations I have ever used in any application,both as a hobbyist AND as a professional.I did a great deal of research on the internet on this unit before purchasing one. The ''How to spot a fake'' threads and videos are numerous, and many are rather impressive in delving into the details.


Cheers,
Art

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with the Hakko Corporation.
Click to expand...


Hakko has higher models. I only talk about the model that use the same tips as my Aoyue. This is very very important to know the distinction. You read back my post, I specified over and over on this point.

That particular style of tip will not work that well. The heater element is a rod stick into the hole of the tip to heat the tip. Heat transfer is not good.

I accidentally took the tip off while the unit is on. I can see the heating rod start glowing, that shows heating is not the problem, transferring the heat to the tip is the problem. It cannot sustain the temperature of the big tip when soldering multi layer boards. Exactly like OP said that changing to a bigger tip does not help at all. You can say Aoyue is crap and Hakko is good, I tend to agree. BUT this is a design problem of that particular tip. I never said all Hakko are bad, ONLY the ones that use this style tips.




The fact is OP cannot melt the solder. I build many guitar amp out of Fender and Marshall chassis using soldering strip terminals like the pictures shown by OP, never ever have I ran into problem not able to melt solder. I believe even my Aoyue might be able to do this kind of soldering. Maybe something is wrong with his Hakko.
 
Johnny_Law said:
I am re-capping this beaut but the old solder refuses to budge. I am using a Hakko FX-888D at 875 degrees with a nice broad tip. It doesn't touch this solder. I have also tried adding some Kester rosin core solder, but once it touches the old stuff it freezes up and becomes unmeltable itself. I have tried a solder wick which doesn't touch it.

I currently have my solder paste warming up to try.

The only way I've been able to get any solder off is by using shears to physically cut it off.

Would love to know if you all have any tricks to desoldering this stuff.

yNughwxl.jpg


HZ4RhgSl.jpg


Thank you,
Ryan
Click to expand...


Are you sure it is SOLDER? Back in the day one of assembly methods was to WELD wires in electric circuit. IF this is the case you have to cut the resulting "ball", otherwise standard solder will not even attach to it.
 
Alan0354 said:
Hakko has higher models. I only talk about the model that use the same tips as my Aoyue. This is very very important to know the distinction. You read back my post, I specified over and over on this point.

That particular style of tip will not work that well. The heater element is a rod stick into the hole of the tip to heat the tip. Heat transfer is not good.

I accidentally took the tip off while the unit is on. I can see the heating rod start glowing, that shows heating is not the problem, transferring the heat to the tip is the problem. It cannot sustain the temperature of the big tip when soldering multi layer boards. Exactly like OP said that changing to a bigger tip does not help at all. You can say Aoyue is crap and Hakko is good, I tend to agree. BUT this is a design problem of that particular tip. I never said all Hakko are bad, ONLY the ones that use this style tips.




The fact is OP cannot melt the solder. I build many guitar amp out of Fender and Marshall chassis using soldering strip terminals like the pictures shown by OP, never ever have I ran into problem not able to melt solder. I believe even my Aoyue might be able to do this kind of soldering. Maybe something is wrong with his Hakko.
Click to expand...


You are clearly unwilling to or are unable to comprehend my message.

The only distinction that is being missed here,and this is on your part, is the difference between genuine Hakko,fake Hakko,and Aoyue.

Hakko has used this element/tip design for many years across several different product lines,is still using it,and it works perfectly.There is NO design defect whatsoever as relates to genuine Hakko units utilizing genuine Hakko tips.The actual Hakko units that use this design work,and work properly. There is no heat transfer issue whatsoever.

The most recognized cause of lack of performance noted between the genuine article and the fakes is the inferior heating element and tips used in the knockoffs.

I regularly use the large T18-S3 Chisel Tip,which is 5.2mm wide (between 3/16'' & 1/4'',for those of the Imperial persuasion) to do heavy,repetitive work,and there is no recovery delay at all. The 65 watt element takes care of this large heat soak easily.

I would strongly suggest that you better inform yourself, and refer to the Thermal Recovery and the Workability Comparison graphs as published by Hakko for this model, and available on their website.They show,quite clearly,the actual performance of an actual Hakko product.

Just because Aoyue and the other counterfeiters are unable to produce a workable copy this design themselves is of no concern whatsoever to me,but your continual bashing of this manufacturer based upon your skewed perception is unacceptable.

The OP's stated difficulty lies in not being able to melt the solder used in the unit he has depicted. With the possible exception of the chassis-mount electrolytic,an FX-888D (a real one!) will easily handle any work of the nature depicted in his photos.The can would be better dealt with using a very large iron or a Weller-type gun.

My sincere apologies to the OP for interrupting his thread,but sometimes enough is enough.
 
absolon said:
Missed the point completely.

You've not missed as opportunity to badmouth Aoyue and I doubt you ever will. Your allergy has nothing to do with that.
Click to expand...
That's your assumption. You better hope you never get allergic to the solder fume. I was in the industry for over 30 years, never had problem. Then one day, it started and is bad. So don't judge unless you walk a mile in my shoe.


AND, this is how you talk about people's health?
 
Last edited:
Alan0354 said:
That's your assumption. You better hope you never get allergic to the solder fume. I was in the industry for over 30 years, never had problem. Then one day, it started and is bad. So don't judge unless you walk a mile in my shoe.


AND, this is how you talk about people's health?
Click to expand...
I'm not talking about your health.

Follow the trail back to your original comment and then spend a minute and think about how my initial comment might relate to the text I quoted in response.

Talking about Aoyue seems to really wind you up. You need to just catch your breath and relax
 
absolon said:
I'm not talking about your health.

Follow the trail back to your original comment and then spend a minute and think about how my initial comment might relate to the text I quoted in response.

Talking about Aoyue seems to really wind you up. You need to just catch your breath and relax
Click to expand...


I cannot!!! I looked, there is NO OTHER iron with fume absorber. I have to live with it. Do you know how hard and how frustrating it is for me? This is about the only one. I was so pissed that I had to get the second one even though when the first one broke after 3 months, Amazon offered me full refund and I had to think LONG and HARD and still decided to take the replacement. You don't know how frustrating day after day like this.

If Hakko has one with fume absorber, I will snatch it up in one day. I don't care it is $500 or $600. I WILL buy it. Do you know how frustrating that I have to take a Zertec before I start doing work everyday? Without the fume absorber, even the Zertec won't work. I even have a nice table top fume absorber/filter, I run both at the same time and still it's hard.

If anyone know of one like my Aoyue that I can buy, PLEASE recommend one. I promise, as soon as I ditch the Aoyue, I won't be complaining as much.
 
I know exactly how hard it is for you and so does everyone else; you've told us many, many times; as many times, in fact, as you've told us how much you dislike your Aoyue iron.

That, specifically, was my original point. Unfortunately, you weren't, and still aren't, paying attention. I'm sympathetic about your allergies, but please, give the complaining a rest. They make value priced tools that perform perfectly well for weekend warriors even if you did break yours and even if that disagrees with your opinions.
 
Well, that's my opinion and I have the right to say it here, just like you have the right to disagree. If anyone doesn't have problem like me, why do they want to go through that hazel?

Weekend warrior might not know and don't have a chance to try out others, they look at the rating on Amazon......Likely rated by weekend warriors that might not know any better. It takes people that have used the industry standard equipment to judge.

AND YES, I have the best to judge. The simple Weller station might not have the bells and whistle, it might not be that cheap for the only thing it does, it does it well. That's why it was the industry standard for so many decades until SMD came into the industry. I would NEVER apologize for what I said AND I stand behind what I said.

30+ years working in many companies like Seimens and LeCroy, I saw ONLY Wellers and Metcal.
 
Last edited:
Binkman said:
Just make a diy fume extractor.. i.e.
http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-Powerful-Solder-Fume-Extractor/

or come up with your own idea, you're talented enough.
Click to expand...
Thanks

I already have a table top extractor already, unless you solder right in front of it, it really does not work that well. I have been searching all over for a high quality equivalent of my Aoyue, there's none. The only thing I can do is modify the Weller to adapt the suction nozzle of the Aoyue onto the iron. That involves cutting the Weller iron to get it close enough.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom