I just got mine yesterday. Same machine, just branded differently. So far, I love it! My only concern is getting tips for it. There are several companies that make them that have discontinued these specific tips. I heard of one guy, who couldn't find tips, make his own. I have no idea how to do that nor do I have the equipment to make tips. Oh well. This thing works so well. One tip though and many don't do this... is when desoldering something, don't release the trigger too soon. Once the solder is sucked up, move the gun away from the work and let the pump run a couple of seconds extra. This will keep the tip and channel clear of clogs. By releasing the trigger, immediately, some of the solder can get stuck in the tube/channel and cause painful clogs.
Great tip, and yes I concur, keep the air going to clear the solder from the nozzle, otherwise you will have to use the nozzle cleaning needle brush/file more often sooner! I haven't used it enough to have to worry too much about the tip yet, but I guess as long as you have a willing machining shop available and enough pocket money, you could get them to be custom made as required!
I did soldering/desoldering my whole life, so here are my two cents: 1) About the discussion on whether refreshing the joint with fresh solder is needed/useful or not, well, I (sparingly) do it on a regular basis, and this is meant not only to deoxidize old solder, but especiaĺly to provide a consistent pool of melted solder for the tip to plunge into so that the heat is evenly distributed and the pump sucking negative pressure is fully applied to the solder and not wasted by sucking some free air in between. 2) Always choose the best diameter tip first, it should accommodate the size of the terminal being desoldered without exceeding the pcb hole diameter too much. 3) When possible, keep the pcb being reworked vertically and not flat as you did in your test, so that the gun is held horizontally. This will drastically improve the pump effectiveness since it has not to fight against gravity and there's less risk for melted solder to "fall back" 4) As already suggested, once the desoldering tip is applied to the joint, gently move it in a circular fashion prior and during the pump action. This is a very delicate phase and should be ideally done with the tip not scratching the pad (which could lead to pad delamination) but instead somewhat "hovering" on the pad by a fraction of millimeter while at the same time slightly dragging the component's terminal. This is a feel and ability requiring a bit of practice to be mastered. 5) Never hurry in pulling the trigger, but allow some time for solder to melt, especially for multi-layered pcb's or large copper areas (ground planes or such) in which case also a higher temperature setting has to be evaluated.
@@theboard You're welcome 🙂 And, I forgot to mention another point, but there will always be some tough cases, like desoldering large power components sinking away most of the tip's heat, when an helper will be inevitably needed, adding heat with a soldering iron by working on the same pad on the opposite side of the pcb, while you operate the desoldering gun in a coordinated way. I sometimes managed to do it all by myself when there was no one around to lend a hand, but it wasn't fun at all 😖
I have a Anesty ZD-915 (very similar to this one and around the same price...). I bit the bullet after desoldering 3 boards by hand with a solder sucker... One of the best purchases I have made... I advise to desolder with the PCB vertically, as it will ease the vaccum 'succ' required and avoid solder to become lodged inside the front. From my experience you will need to replace the little foam filter inside the gun after 2 to 3 full boards... have not yet replaced the one in the unit and is still good after 3 boards...
As in, the PCB is vertical so the gun is horizontal? I think that makes sense, though probably not as visually easy to see on video haha, thank you for the tip! As someone who has desoldered a bunch of boards, yes, this device will definitely be a lifesaver for those intending to desolder a lot.
This is a great bit of kit. I've bought a similar one (different color, same factory) after a great review by Dave from the EEVBlog. It saves time, it allows you to recycle parts, it's awesome. Some things though. Clean the nozzle regularly with the needles provided during a session to avoid the solder accumulating past the heating cartridge and congealing at the entry of the transparent reservoir. It's a pain to clean cold solder stuck there. Use the proper diameter nozzle to get an optimal suction. You'll soon realise you better engrave the nozzle head with a mark to know what diameter it is because quite often once the nozzle is cold, cold solder blocks the opening and you can't figure out the nozzle's diameter until you reheat the gun. Last thing, depending on the model, there are two types of solder shields in the transparent reservoir : one is just a metal plate the size of a cent, the other (the better one) is a conical shaped spring. It's easier to clean and protects the felt disc that's behind better, giving it a longer life. You can get the part online on AliExpress, they're interchangeable.
Great tips! Thank you very much for sharing : ) I have the one that is the metal plate with cutouts, not a conical spring so I guess I might look into getting the replacement if I'm looking to do a lot more desoldering.
@@ng-iq4kx Great tip, I'm assuming the steel wool will catch the fines and still let the vacuum flow go through well enough. Replacing the filter with cleaning pads is also a great hack, just have to cut them small enough!
@@ng-iq4kx Oh that's a great idea! I would not have thought of that. For clarity, cut the steel wool so that it covers the entire "ceramic" filter (feels like felt) and let THAT gather the solder? I suspect, however, that one would have to cut a lot of pieces of steel wool because it would probably be a used once and toss, kind of thing. I can't see "cleaning" the steel wool itself. Great idea!
Are you still around? Is the desoldering gun easy to disasseble and clean? I have a desoldering station and it's gun is quite frustrating to disasseble and clean because it's so tight and I break the plastic glass.
The back of the gun releases with a mechanism that is pretty easy to open, and then you can pull out the spring and plate and filter, to clean it. The nozzle is fairly easy to clean out with the pin/rod it comes with. I haven't felt that I was at risk of breaking the tube on it.
the holes that the desoldering iron couldnt suck were probably double sided. means u had to heat the solder more time.put the desoldering iron in the pin doing small circles.dont put pressure coz u will destroy the tracks. in case of huge copper areas,u can use your soldering iron the keep the temp high while u use the desoldering gun and suck the solder.
Thank you so much for the tips! Yeah, having something pre-heat it would help, possibly a preheater unit would make a big difference if I ever had space for one haha.
I found that for the double sided and/or multi-layer boards, I had to turn the heat up to 480C and hold the gun in the spot a few seconds more, THEN press the trigger. This worked well. Also, when it came to larger components, like caps or inductors, I just held them with my left hand so that I'd know when they are loose. This worked well. Of course, I wouldn't try that on smaller parts. LOL
you should not be needing to feed more solder. Giving the heater 1 to 2 seconds more time to heat the joint works much better. Adding flux works but clogs the filters much faster.
Personal experience in working with older joints and lead-free solder, feeding some leaded solder can help it some. Indeed having flux will help but I don't normally have any flux since I use rosin cored solder so it kind of does both with adding the fresh solder.
Desoldering is quite a journey XD but you ease it up so much with that desoldering gun :D i spend all my monry for hakko so my solution is to use manual desoldering technicues. It would be fine just that japan desoldering gun still sucks because it gets filled with solder too fast. Yes 450 is best for unleaded solder. 350-400 for leaded But i looked at that price and it is debatable. Though half of hakko one, but hakko is hakko XD
Hakko is indeed top tier, but if you're not doing heaps and heaps and heaps and need rock solid reliability, its something to consider the saving. I try to desolder at as low as possible temperatures, but because I also sometimes add fresh leaded, it helps drop the desoldering temperature down some as it mixes.
I just got mine yesterday. Same machine, just branded differently.
So far, I love it!
My only concern is getting tips for it. There are several companies that make them that have discontinued these specific tips.
I heard of one guy, who couldn't find tips, make his own. I have no idea how to do that nor do I have the equipment to make tips.
Oh well.
This thing works so well.
One tip though and many don't do this... is when desoldering something, don't release the trigger too soon.
Once the solder is sucked up, move the gun away from the work and let the pump run a couple of seconds extra.
This will keep the tip and channel clear of clogs.
By releasing the trigger, immediately, some of the solder can get stuck in the tube/channel and cause painful clogs.
Great tip, and yes I concur, keep the air going to clear the solder from the nozzle, otherwise you will have to use the nozzle cleaning needle brush/file more often sooner! I haven't used it enough to have to worry too much about the tip yet, but I guess as long as you have a willing machining shop available and enough pocket money, you could get them to be custom made as required!
Some needs to give you a tip for tips.
I did soldering/desoldering my whole life, so here are my two cents:
1) About the discussion on whether refreshing the joint with fresh solder is needed/useful or not, well, I (sparingly) do it on a regular basis, and this is meant not only to deoxidize old solder, but especiaĺly to provide a consistent pool of melted solder for the tip to plunge into so that the heat is evenly distributed and the pump sucking negative pressure is fully applied to the solder and not wasted by sucking some free air in between.
2) Always choose the best diameter tip first, it should accommodate the size of the terminal being desoldered without exceeding the pcb hole diameter too much.
3) When possible, keep the pcb being reworked vertically and not flat as you did in your test, so that the gun is held horizontally. This will drastically improve the pump effectiveness since it has not to fight against gravity and there's less risk for melted solder to "fall back"
4) As already suggested, once the desoldering tip is applied to the joint, gently move it in a circular fashion prior and during the pump action. This is a very delicate phase and should be ideally done with the tip not scratching the pad (which could lead to pad delamination) but instead somewhat "hovering" on the pad by a fraction of millimeter while at the same time slightly dragging the component's terminal. This is a feel and ability requiring a bit of practice to be mastered.
5) Never hurry in pulling the trigger, but allow some time for solder to melt, especially for multi-layered pcb's or large copper areas (ground planes or such) in which case also a higher temperature setting has to be evaluated.
Thank you for so many really great tips, much appreciated!
@@theboard You're welcome 🙂
And, I forgot to mention another point, but there will always be some tough cases, like desoldering large power components sinking away most of the tip's heat, when an helper will be inevitably needed, adding heat with a soldering iron by working on the same pad on the opposite side of the pcb, while you operate the desoldering gun in a coordinated way. I sometimes managed to do it all by myself when there was no one around to lend a hand, but it wasn't fun at all 😖
Which is why preheaters also are helpful!
I have a Anesty ZD-915 (very similar to this one and around the same price...). I bit the bullet after desoldering 3 boards by hand with a solder sucker... One of the best purchases I have made...
I advise to desolder with the PCB vertically, as it will ease the vaccum 'succ' required and avoid solder to become lodged inside the front.
From my experience you will need to replace the little foam filter inside the gun after 2 to 3 full boards... have not yet replaced the one in the unit and is still good after 3 boards...
As in, the PCB is vertical so the gun is horizontal?
I think that makes sense, though probably not as visually easy to see on video haha, thank you for the tip!
As someone who has desoldered a bunch of boards, yes, this device will definitely be a lifesaver for those intending to desolder a lot.
The filter in the base shouldn't need to be replaced. The one in the gun can be replaced with those little cleaning pads women use on their face.
This is a great bit of kit. I've bought a similar one (different color, same factory) after a great review by Dave from the EEVBlog. It saves time, it allows you to recycle parts, it's awesome.
Some things though. Clean the nozzle regularly with the needles provided during a session to avoid the solder accumulating past the heating cartridge and congealing at the entry of the transparent reservoir. It's a pain to clean cold solder stuck there.
Use the proper diameter nozzle to get an optimal suction. You'll soon realise you better engrave the nozzle head with a mark to know what diameter it is because quite often once the nozzle is cold, cold solder blocks the opening and you can't figure out the nozzle's diameter until you reheat the gun.
Last thing, depending on the model, there are two types of solder shields in the transparent reservoir : one is just a metal plate the size of a cent, the other (the better one) is a conical shaped spring. It's easier to clean and protects the felt disc that's behind better, giving it a longer life. You can get the part online on AliExpress, they're interchangeable.
Great tips! Thank you very much for sharing : ) I have the one that is the metal plate with cutouts, not a conical spring so I guess I might look into getting the replacement if I'm looking to do a lot more desoldering.
Replace the cut out with a penny or a ball of gold steel wool
@@ng-iq4kx Great tip, I'm assuming the steel wool will catch the fines and still let the vacuum flow go through well enough.
Replacing the filter with cleaning pads is also a great hack, just have to cut them small enough!
@@ng-iq4kx Oh that's a great idea! I would not have thought of that.
For clarity, cut the steel wool so that it covers the entire "ceramic" filter (feels like felt) and let THAT gather the solder?
I suspect, however, that one would have to cut a lot of pieces of steel wool because it would probably be a used once and toss, kind of thing. I can't see "cleaning" the steel wool itself.
Great idea!
TGA, I like the idea of scoring the tips so we'd know which are which.
I'll do that today.
Thanks for that.
Are you still around? Is the desoldering gun easy to disasseble and clean? I have a desoldering station and it's gun is quite frustrating to disasseble and clean because it's so tight and I break the plastic glass.
The back of the gun releases with a mechanism that is pretty easy to open, and then you can pull out the spring and plate and filter, to clean it. The nozzle is fairly easy to clean out with the pin/rod it comes with.
I haven't felt that I was at risk of breaking the tube on it.
the holes that the desoldering iron couldnt suck were probably double sided. means u had to heat the solder more time.put the desoldering iron in the pin doing small circles.dont put pressure coz u will destroy the tracks. in case of huge copper areas,u can use your soldering iron the keep the temp high while u use the desoldering gun and suck the solder.
Thank you so much for the tips! Yeah, having something pre-heat it would help, possibly a preheater unit would make a big difference if I ever had space for one haha.
I found that for the double sided and/or multi-layer boards, I had to turn the heat up to 480C and hold the gun in the spot a few seconds more, THEN press the trigger. This worked well.
Also, when it came to larger components, like caps or inductors, I just held them with my left hand so that I'd know when they are loose. This worked well.
Of course, I wouldn't try that on smaller parts. LOL
you should not be needing to feed more solder. Giving the heater 1 to 2 seconds more time to heat the joint works much better. Adding flux works but clogs the filters much faster.
Personal experience in working with older joints and lead-free solder, feeding some leaded solder can help it some. Indeed having flux will help but I don't normally have any flux since I use rosin cored solder so it kind of does both with adding the fresh solder.
Heat first before vac solder is not needed flux definitly is not flux in wire
Cute caps on that board
Yeah, super vintage!
Desoldering is quite a journey XD but you ease it up so much with that desoldering gun :D i spend all my monry for hakko so my solution is to use manual desoldering technicues. It would be fine just that japan desoldering gun still sucks because it gets filled with solder too fast. Yes 450 is best for unleaded solder. 350-400 for leaded
But i looked at that price and it is debatable. Though half of hakko one, but hakko is hakko XD
Hakko is indeed top tier, but if you're not doing heaps and heaps and heaps and need rock solid reliability, its something to consider the saving. I try to desolder at as low as possible temperatures, but because I also sometimes add fresh leaded, it helps drop the desoldering temperature down some as it mixes.
It REALLY isn't THAT big!
Compared to a solder sucker though, its huge.
@@theboard LOL! But there's no compsrison which is the better!