Yihua Soldering Rework station (Do I need one?)

[Rob-F]

Pretty close to pulling the trigger on a Weller soldering station, and maybe even a nicer desoldering outfit than my sucker, and I ran across this thing on amazon. It has a soldering iron and a "hot air gun." Very fancy, with apparently adjustable temperature for the hot air gun and/or the iron (not sure). I have a hot blower for heat shrink. Works fine. What else does one do with a hot air gun?

Ever heard of this? Ever heard of Yihua? I have not. The term "rework" seems to imply desoldering. The Amazon writeup tells me not much. I got distracted by it while looking at Weller and Hakko. I pretty much do soldering and desoldering on preamps, power amps, and tuners. Do I need this thing, or should I forget about it? Been doing pretty well with my 25 Watt Weller the past 25 years--thought I would upgrade.

 

[I LIKE MUSIC]

"What else does one do with a hot air gun?"

Dry your hair...oh wait this is about soldering.

Here are a couple of videos...

This first few minutes of this video gives a good example.

While traditional soldering techniques will work for SMDs, hot air soldering is much easier when working with SMDs.

 

[ZOOM]

I des older stuff with hot air daily. Impossible to do multi pin parts with good quality work otherwise.

 

[Rob-F]

Wow, I didn't know this existed. Thanks! Is there any use for it for the kind of PC boards and component size found in audio gear? I don't believe I have run across such tiny items as seen in the videos.

 

[ChrisMarantz]

You will find SMD components in modern equipment starting in the mid 1990's or so. Cheap hot air stations are worthless if they're going to be used often. Just like any tool - you get what you pay for. -Chris