Ignoramus18705 wrote:
On 2008-01-31, Jon Elson wrote:

Oh, I definitely was not suggesting that everyone go out and buy a Pace
station. But, Iggy already HAD the station, it just wasn't working
right. And, yes, they do take some maintenance, but when doing a bunch
of connections, there's nothing that can do it faster. When I use a
Soldapullt, I still have to mess with breaking the pins free of the last
bit of solder. When I use a Pace, I apply suction while orbiting the
desolder tip around the pin, causing the pin to orbit in the PCB hole.
This gets the pin/hole cleared of solder much more effectively. This is
the technique taught in the Pace manuals, and I can tell you, it is VERY
effective. Like these 68-pin connectors in the 6-layer board, when I
get the last pin unsoldered, it just falls off the board.


Jon, do you solder with your station also?
I have a one-channel unit at home for desoldering only. I use it rarely,
but when I have some large number of connections to desolder, or something
expensive that is likely to be a bear with other tools, it is a great
tool to have. No matter how difficult the thermal considerations of the
board, the Pace WILL desolder the part with no damage, and I get a clean
part and a clean board without wrecking the through holes.

I have an MBT station at work that has 3 channels. We got it with a
whole pile of tips, handles, etc. I used it for a while for both
soldering and desoldering, but am now doing a lot of extreme
micro-soldering on chips with 0.5mm lead pitch, and we needed a real
micro iron. So, we got a Weller WSL with the WMP micro-pencil, which is
actually a darn good general iron for all electronic work.

I have a collection of older Weller digital readout soldering stations
at home with the 1302 mini soldering pencil, which I actually like just
a little better than the WMP. You can get an EC2002 and ESD1302 pencil
fairly cheap on eBay if you are patient.

Jon