Soldering station or hot air station

[audiofreak19]

So I'm looking at trading a guy on craigslist for a hot air soldering station. I currently use a weller plug in soldering iron. Do you guys use both a hot air station and adjustable soldering iron or one or the other. I found a guy online with a nice weller adjustable soldering iron and I don't know if I should look into getting both or is the hot air gonna do the job for both. What are your opinions.

[dj_ricoh]

don`t sell the weller OMFG!!!!!!!!!!

Never!

try to buy a hot air station. its a very special case when you have to use them both and you need a jig to hold it.

never never never sell the weller that`s working !

[stj]

i hate weller.
big fat handle. very overpriced kit.
and i especially hate the "magnastat" irons!

anyway, iron/air - different tools for different jobs.
it's like saying screwdriver or pliers - you need both!

[audiofreak19]

Ah ok. I had a feeling I could use both. Can you give me examples where it would be better to use hot air and and example of when it would be better to use the iron instead of hot air.

[stj]

iron when it goes through the board, air when it sits on the surface put simply.

look at those fets you see soldered flat on the board a lot.
wih air you just heat the whole area and lift it off with tweezers.

with an iron you would have to lift each pin a bit off the board without damage, then heat the tab for a while to lift the part.

[audiofreak19]

Very good example. I'm gonna work on trying to get both. The digital soldering station is 100 bucks with extra tips and its a weller. But I might look into getting the hakko one that's blue and yellow. Cause I think that's cheaper than 100.

[stj]

ah yea, was looking at that the other day.
unfortunatly the European dealers take the piss on the price,
and international shipping still pushes it well up!

[Op4500]

Originally Posted by stj

i hate weller.
big fat handle. very overpriced kit.
and i especially hate the "magnastat" irons!

anyway, iron/air - different tools for different jobs.
it's like saying screwdriver or pliers - you need both!

I liked weller until I went to home depot to get a more powerful iron. I picked up the weller WPS18MP which boasted "Fast heating 60w performance" I open the thing up and it has an 18w DC power supply, wtf? So either Weller has invented some kind of magic that turns 18w into 60 or they are fucking liars. Yeah turns out it wasn't magic, it was completely useless for desoldering anything bigger than an 18ga wire, cooled down as fast as it heated up and had a dumb proprietary socket for the tip, looks exactly like a 3.5mm headphone plug, dumb. It wobbled and you could tell it was made out of super cheap plastic, I felt like I could just crush the soldering iron with my bare hands. Returned it to home depot after one use.

[dj_ricoh]

Not the magnetic tip.
The one you can adjust.
Even if you got the one with magnetic tips its awesome.
I dont even wanna tell you how awesome you can solder chips with over 30 pins like notebook keyboard controler KBC or other chips like that.
Ofc many will use hot air or ir station. But this is for everybody to decide.

Me? I use hot air for fets that is solder under cooling ppads. Big chips but after i use a good fat iron to put them back.
Aaaaa my last job with hot air aaaaaand iron.
There are few shops around leyton that likes my soldering for those ps3 and other consoles that i got a good status and aparently i'm the only one around who can change them .
yeeey
Good for me

[stj]

Laytonstone? lol
i think it was sherlock holms who said "i never go east of the oldgate unarmed"

[audiofreak19]

So I got my hot air station. Traded a 32in Dynex lcd tv for it. Does anyone know any big name store I could go to to buy solder paste to use with the hot air station. I'm just trying to figure out if anywhere close by has it so I don't have to drive 45 min to suburban electronics

[stj]

paste?
you making something?
for repairs you need good flux - the solder is already there.

paste is used when making stuff - and you put it on the board with a stencil.
like screen-printing.

what air station is it?

[audiofreak19]

The air station is a lf-852d by xytronic. It had barely been used. But when repairing don't you need to add solder to the pads. The main thing I'm going to use this on is a as15-f chip on a t con board. Should I just heat up all around it and pull it off. Then just sit the new one on and re heat the solder that's left on the pads. Also what temp do you thinkni should use I was guessing at 350.

[stj]

heat the old chip and lift it off.
then paint a thin layer of flux on the pads & reheat so they flatten out
then put another thin layer & place the chip.
it helps to use an iron to melt a couple of pads on alternate corners to keep it still
then reheat it with the air and it should drop onto the pads.

[audiofreak19]

Ok cool. Thanks.

[audiofreak19]

What do you think I should put the temp at.

[stj]

no idea - you need to experiment.

the thing about air is it will depend on the distance from the target, how fast you want to heat the target (dont try to rush it) and the type of solder used.

[audiofreak19]

Ok. Thanks for the help.

[dj_ricoh]

put a pic of the front of the station.

on mine i got air level and temp, but the temp its not on the knob it got a lcd on the station.

my station!

[audiofreak19]

Here is what it looks like