Leon Fisk wrote:
On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:23:07 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

I certainly won't refute your good experience with the $2500 tool ...
but if you didn't have the $2500 tool available to you then you might
benefit from a Soldapullt lesson by a technician who is proficient
with one.

I also doubt that repair of circuit boards in Miller Welders is
strongly comparable to the rather more sophisticated and challenging
work you do with 68-pin connectors on 6-layer boards.

I've used both (Pace and Soldapullt) and a Soldapullt would
beat the Pace on oinky work. I learned desoldering with a
Soldapullt so maybe that is why I could make it work well. I
had a Pace desolder-station, two Weller pencils and two 250
watt plus guns at my bench. The Pace required continuous
maintenance (as others have said) and it worked well, but a
Soldapullt could beat it albeit at a slower rate. I worked
on surface mount itsy-bitsy stuff all the way up to... We
also had a Hotair station for surface mount chips but that
is a whole'nuther discussion...

For Jon, if you are pulling the pencil away from the joint
and then moving the Soldapullt in, you are doing it wrong.

Correct. The solder has to be completely melted, and not freezing when you
remove it.

You leave the pencil on the joint, rest the Soldapullt tip
so it touches the board but not the pencil tip and then fire
it. Be careful about this, it you contact the pencil tip too
much with the Soldapullt you can damage the circuit board
trace when it fires.

The mini/small Soldapullt's are crap, (like the model US140
Edsyn Universal Soldapullt) not enough suction. Get the big
one like Don linked to. I still have two Soldapullt's, the
old Blue and yellow (DS017) and the silver anti-static
version (AS196). They are both over 15 years old and still
work fine.

The only maintence they could ever need is a new tip and maybe a drop of
lube on the o-ring.

Desolder stations on nice to have, but a bit pricey for only
occasional use.

I don't do any smd stuff, but I really can't think of any desoldering task
task that wasn't doable with just a solder sucker and maybe desoldering
braid. The most important thing to have is a decent soldering iron and the
correct sized tips. Even cheapo weller irons are perfectly acceptable for
most work.

Adding more solder to a joint being undone will almost always help.