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From: Herman on 31 Jul 2010 20:38
I am looking to buy a hot air SMT rework station. Only for occasional use.
I like the idea of the vacuum pencil and the hot tweezers. What would be
the recommended tips for general use for ICs and resistors etc. I do not
need to do the PLLC size chips. Price $300 max or so.


From: Arfa Daily on 1 Aug 2010 12:50


"Herman" <ripe(a)bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:i32fmn$iu8$1(a)news.albasani.net...
> I am looking to buy a hot air SMT rework station. Only for occasional
> use. I like the idea of the vacuum pencil and the hot tweezers. What
> would be the recommended tips for general use for ICs and resistors etc.
> I do not need to do the PLLC size chips. Price $300 max or so.
>

I have recently purchased a hot air rework station. It has hot air handpiece
with fully controllable airflow and temperature. Digital readout for temp.
Also has conventional iron with stand, again fully controllable temp and
digital readout. Comes with 5 round hot air nozzles. Square ones for QFPs
etc purchased from other sources fit, I understand from a friend who also
has one. Also 5 tips for the soldering iron, spare element for the hot air
and spare element for the soldering iron. I paid 55UKP for it, so work that
out in USD - about $80 maybe. Company I got it from is in China and called
dragondirectmall. Very efficient and helpful service. Once it had been
collected from them by DHL, arrived at my door less than 24 Hrs later. On
their eBay site, they have a video showing a station being built, and you
can see that for the money, it is incredible value.

Go to eBay and put in "KADA 852D" then look for the one that says "buy now
for �55". They have USD prices as well, as far as I recall. Very satisfied
with mine, so far.

Arfa

From: Herman on 3 Aug 2010 09:01

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily(a)ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:FBh5o.37277$gM.26872(a)hurricane...
>
>
> "Herman" <ripe(a)bellsouth.net> wrote in message
> news:i32fmn$iu8$1(a)news.albasani.net...
>> I am looking to buy a hot air SMT rework station. Only for occasional
>> use. I like the idea of the vacuum pencil and the hot tweezers. What
>> would be the recommended tips for general use for ICs and resistors etc.
>> I do not need to do the PLLC size chips. Price $300 max or so.
>>
>
> I have recently purchased a hot air rework station. It has hot air
> handpiece with fully controllable airflow and temperature. Digital readout
> for temp. Also has conventional iron with stand, again fully controllable
> temp and digital readout. Comes with 5 round hot air nozzles. Square ones
> for QFPs etc purchased from other sources fit, I understand from a friend
> who also has one. Also 5 tips for the soldering iron, spare element for
> the hot air and spare element for the soldering iron. I paid 55UKP for it,
> so work that out in USD - about $80 maybe. Company I got it from is in
> China and called dragondirectmall. Very efficient and helpful service.
> Once it had been collected from them by DHL, arrived at my door less than
> 24 Hrs later. On their eBay site, they have a video showing a station
> being built, and you can see that for the money, it is incredible value.
>
> Go to eBay and put in "KADA 852D" then look for the one that says "buy now
> for �55". They have USD prices as well, as far as I recall. Very satisfied
> with mine, so far.
>
> Arfa

I was looking at that one. What do you think about the vacuum pencil and
the hot tweezers? Seems like a good idea for resistors and diodes. Do the
tips supplied work for small ICs? I have never used one of these stations.


From: Arfa Daily on 3 Aug 2010 11:25


"Herman" <ripe(a)bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:i393ul$gdd$1(a)news.albasani.net...
>
> "Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily(a)ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:FBh5o.37277$gM.26872(a)hurricane...
>>
>>
>> "Herman" <ripe(a)bellsouth.net> wrote in message
>> news:i32fmn$iu8$1(a)news.albasani.net...
>>> I am looking to buy a hot air SMT rework station. Only for occasional
>>> use. I like the idea of the vacuum pencil and the hot tweezers. What
>>> would be the recommended tips for general use for ICs and resistors etc.
>>> I do not need to do the PLLC size chips. Price $300 max or so.
>>>
>>
>> I have recently purchased a hot air rework station. It has hot air
>> handpiece with fully controllable airflow and temperature. Digital
>> readout for temp. Also has conventional iron with stand, again fully
>> controllable temp and digital readout. Comes with 5 round hot air
>> nozzles. Square ones for QFPs etc purchased from other sources fit, I
>> understand from a friend who also has one. Also 5 tips for the soldering
>> iron, spare element for the hot air and spare element for the soldering
>> iron. I paid 55UKP for it, so work that out in USD - about $80 maybe.
>> Company I got it from is in China and called dragondirectmall. Very
>> efficient and helpful service. Once it had been collected from them by
>> DHL, arrived at my door less than 24 Hrs later. On their eBay site, they
>> have a video showing a station being built, and you can see that for the
>> money, it is incredible value.
>>
>> Go to eBay and put in "KADA 852D" then look for the one that says "buy
>> now for �55". They have USD prices as well, as far as I recall. Very
>> satisfied with mine, so far.
>>
>> Arfa
>
> I was looking at that one. What do you think about the vacuum pencil and
> the hot tweezers? Seems like a good idea for resistors and diodes. Do
> the tips supplied work for small ICs? I have never used one of these
> stations.
>

I've never bothered with vacuum pencils and hot tweezers. I guess it depends
how much you are going to be doing with it. I work with surface mount on a
daily basis, but it's actually pretty reliable stuff, in general. When I
need to get a resistor off a board, I just heat both ends alternately with a
standard iron, and then 'flick' it off the pads. If I have one that is in an
awkward place to do that, I use one of the shaped bits that I have for my
Antex station. These are just 'standard' tips in that they fit any Antex 25
watt iron, but have a sort of 'forked' tip, the prongs being the right
distance apart to heat both ends simultaneously, of standard profile sm
components. There are also tips in the same range that have an I.C. spacing
to the forks, and are the length of an IC. Good for your standard sized 8 /
14 / 24 etc pinned sm ICs. I have a full set of these specially shaped tips
that I use when needed with my Antex temp controlled station. Not cheap, but
a good investment. As for picking the devices up, I just use needle tipped
stainless steel tweezers.

The smallest nozzle supplied for the hot air handpiece is a couple of mm
diameter. It easily allows removal of ICs as long as they are not too big.
The process involves going round and round the pin rows until it's hot
enough for the solder on all pins to stay molten long enough to flick the IC
off the board. Obviously, if it's a very big QFP package, then that's not so
easy to do, and a shaped nozzle to heat all four sides at once, is more
appropriate.

That said, when I got my KADA hot air station, I spent a while getting a
'feel' for it, and I removed all sizes of QFP ICs from and old mother board,
and just to prove that you could, I even removed two BGAs that were probably
4cm square each.

I guess it's horses for courses, but for general use, so far, I can
thoroughly recommend my KADA as being a good value for money tool, and
actually, of remarkable quality and functionality, for the price.

Arfa

From: stratus46 on 3 Aug 2010 23:32
On Aug 3, 6:01 am, "Herman" <r...(a)bellsouth.net> wrote:
<snip>
> I was looking at that one.  What do you think about the vacuum
pencil and
> the hot tweezers?  Seems like a good idea for resistors and diodes.
 Do the
> tips supplied work for small ICs?  I have never used one of these
stations.

A couple weeks back we had to transplant a pair of 100 pin QFP chips
on an old Sony broadcast VTR. To remove them we used an Ungar hot air
gun like you'd use for heat shrink. To replace them we used a Metcal
STTC-126 tip and over-soldered and cleaned up with solder wick
followed by flux removal. These were not high density pins but I have
used this technique on 0.5 mm pin spacing. Personally I find a Metcal
soldering iron a far more useful tool.

G²
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