Hakko FR-330 solder sucker pump thingie

[dlucy]

For those of you who haven't seen a powered solder sucker or desoldering pump in action, here is a short video of the Hakko FR-330 in action:

(And yes, that is WAMU's Hot Jazz Saturday Night playing in the background)

 

[Alan0354]

Looks like it's a single layer board, the pads have not plated through holes or ground plane from what I see in the video. It will be a different world if you have plated through holes particular with plane. Don't get me wrong, it is useful. I have the Aoyue and it works great. But it is harder if you have multi-layer boards, even two layers. Also, maintenance is high, have to empty the solder quite often, the gun do plugged and I had to stick a long stem through to clear the blockage.

It's definitely better than the hand pumped desolderer.

 

[dlucy]

Looks like it's a single layer board, the pads have not plated through holes or ground plane from what I see in the video. It will be a different world if you have plated through holes particular with plane. Don't get me wrong, it is useful. I have the Aoyue and it works great. But it is harder if you have multi-layer boards, even two layers. Also, maintenance is high, have to empty the solder quite often, the gun do plugged and I had to stick a long stem through to clear the blockage.

It's definitely better than the hand pumped desolderer.

Good to know about multi-layer boards. I don't have any experience with those yet.

The maintenance is something many people seem upset with. I find I need to clean out the solder container every 20 minutes or so and I have to use the nozzle ram to clear the heated passageway every hour or so. For me, that is a very small price to pay for the ease and lower risk with the powered desoldering tool.

 

[gadget73]

I have the older 808, but its pretty much the same thing overall. I have done a very little bit on multilayer boards. It works OK but you have to leave it on long enough to melt the solder completely otherwise it takes only a portion and refuses to melt any more unless you flow some more on there first. Yeah it involves some maintenance but the dumping and clearing of the nozzle is far less frustrating than dealing with lifted solder pads. It also works a treat on point to point tube gear to get the bulk of solder off a terminal before unwrapping leads.

 

[Alan0354]

It sure is a pcb saver. I am not knocking that at all, I just want to put it out there in case people think "Wow, it's magic". Yes, doing multi layers is harder, BUT imagine it would be that much harder with the hand pump solder sucker. I would buy the Aoyue again ( or another brand if it's better) even though how much I hate the soldering iron that comes along with it.

 

[NAD80]

When dealing with multi-layer boards that the solder sucker can't handle by itself, I get a regular soldering iron to provide extra heat so the solder sucker (Pace) can remove the solder. At times hate the ROHS lead free solder, twice as hard to flow even with flux.