On Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:22:00 -0800, Smitty Two
wrote:

In article ,
JW wrote:

I'm currently looking for an affordable hot air station for the bench. One
that came up often in my searches was this one:
http://www.atomicfireballs.com/stati...oyue/index.php

Can anyone recommend this one, or perhaps have a better alternative?

Thanks.

What are you using now? I don't do a lot of rework but one of my heat
guns (for shrink tubing) has some small nozzles, and it works well for
removing chips. I douse the offender liberally in liquid flux first.
Often there are other small components nearby so I'll make a little
cardboard heat shield with a window cut out of it.

I don't see the advantage of a fancy schmancy dedicated rework station.
As far as digital readouts and temperature control, I'm a bah-humbug
skeptic. You only have one choice anyway, and that's to get the thing
hot enough to melt the solder.

Separating the heater from the blower permits a bit more agility, rather
on the order of using a pencil iron versus a two-pound soldering gun.

The closed-loop temperature control is useful to allow varying the air
flow rate without also affecting the air temp.

I guess it comes down to convenience. For folks who only do onsie-twosie
surface mount reworks, it may make more sense to skip the hot air
altogether and use the ChipQuik technique http://www.chipquik.com/. The
stuff really works, but it gets pricey for large quantity use.

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA