Desoldering tool
Posted By azog on August 4, 2009
For some time now, I’ve been wanting a “real” desoldering tool. I do have one of these, which does the job in a pinch:
But if you’ve ever tried to reclaim parts, you’ll quickly find the limitations of such a device.
I’ve seen projects where people have modified those Radio Shack “desoldering irons”, augmenting the suction bulb with an aquarium pump. But I wanted something a little more robust.
So after futzing around and arguing with myself, I finally decided to buy one of these:
This is a Hakko 808 desoldering kit. I settled on this after spending some time searching around for desoldering tools. This one kept coming back in Google searches, e-bay searches, even on Amazon. For websites that allow you to post reviews, this always received good reviews. People seem happy with the performance, and apparently parts are easy to come by.
For light-weight duty, it is a little bit on the steep side in terms of price, around $200. But I’m hoping this will be one of those long-term investments, something that’ll function reliably for years.
Basically it has a hollow tip feeding to a debris chamber, and a trigger that operates a suction motor. Put the tip over the solder joint, let it melt, and press the button, and presto. Nice and clean. It helps to wiggle the gun while you press the trigger, as that helps to get out any stubborn solder. Also, as you lift the tool from the now-clean section, keep the trigger pressed. This forces plain air though the tube and helps prevent clogs.
As you try to lift the part up, there still may be a teensy bit of solder, so a little gentle rocking and cajoling can help.
I hate discarding perfectly good parts, even sockets, so after about five minutes, I reclaimed a 40-pin socket and a 16-pin socket.
This would have taken at least 30 minutes, and I might even have ruined something along the way.
The 16 pin socket is a machined socket, which are a little more expensive. And the missing two pins are deliberate. I had a part that fit into a 16-pin footprint, but only 14 pins were supplied, so I simply removed two pins.
When done, just clean out the tip, let it cool off, and empty the debris chamber.
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