Your station is more commonly known as a ZD-8915. It comes with identical accessories and behaves exactly the same. Price is 79 euro (tax included) and is available at Eleshop (=a good dutch electronics webshop). It requires a little bit of practicing to avoid blocking the nozzle and to get a fluent workflow (temperature, suction times, reheating time ...), but it's a good station. Ideal for occasional desoldering without the frustrations of a manual pump and/or wick :-)
Ok video. However, when you desolder, don't just hold the sucker tip onto the pin and press suck. One must hold the sucking tip at 90 degrees to the pin, (which you didn't do at times) then move it slight around then suck. Don't rush, and you'll will find you will get even better results...!!!
240°C is way too low, especially if you're desoldering anything manufactured with lead-free solder. When I was a full-time audio-equipment repair tech, I worked with Hakko and Aoyue desoldering station's typically set to 380°C, and if I was working with lead-free solder I might bump it up to 410 or 420C because leadfree solder has a higher melting point. It's also a lot easier to desolder anything manufactured with lead-free solder, or older products made with leaded solder, if you add some fresh solder to the joints first because the flux in your solder will reactivate the existing solder on the old circuit boards and make it easier for the machine to liquify and remove it. I find it interesting that this machine uses a widely spaced coiled spring to tension the parts in the solder collection chamber, but does not use a fine type spring as a sort of solder collection cup like many of the modern inexpensive desoldering stations do. That solder collecting spring which was included in the Aoyue station at work functions poorly, and I prefer the older technique of stuffing a small wad of medium grade steel wool into the collection tube to cool the molten solder and flux fumes and catch them.
Great video, I had just bought one of these stations, but in a duel system (soldering iron & desoldering gun) excited to use it, very good explanation of the system, keep up the great work mate 🤙🏼🇦🇺
Excellent for its price but understand its limitations - the 90Watt heating element is plenty to desolder single sided and double sided printed circuit boards including plated through hole PCB's - BUT what I bought mine to do was replace all 65 Capacitors on a faulty Computer Motherboard. Computer Motherboards are double sided, entirely plated through hole design AND (as I discovered) have a SIX layer PCB meaning the fibreglass board has a layer of copper then an insulator layer then another layer of copper and so on until you have three electrically separate layers of copper on each side - with various inter layer and some through board interconnections as well. What this means in practice is some Motherboards will have HUMONGOUS THERMAL MASS especially around certain parts/areas - so performing any soldering / desoldering work can be difficult especially in certain areas of the Motherboard where large areas of copper are left to act as a heatsink and/or RFI shield. I discovered that with pre-heating the Motherboard the work became a lot easier - but also noted that a big name brand of soldering iron I was using even though it was only a 45Watt element could melt the old original solder where the 90Watt desolder heating element was not hot enough even at max power/temperature settings - probably due to conversion efficiency - the 45Watt soldering iron probably delivered nearly all of its 45W of heat energy to the solder joint while the 90Watt desolder element apparrently did not deliver all of its 90W heat energy to the joint to be desoldered - implication being the 90W heating element is only about 50% efficient at transferring heat. That is how I found out why there is a market for the very expensive big name brand desolder stations - when they say they have a 120Watt heating element for desoldering they mean it is around 90% efficient so transferrs nearly all its heat energy effectively to the joint to be desoldered BUT unless you regularly work on SIX layer PCB's you will be very happy with the desolder tool in the video. By the way the Motherboard I repaired by replacing all 65 Capacitors on still works perfectly 4 years later.
I've had this one (the ZD-8915) for about 5 years now and it's been doing pretty good for me. It's certainly not close to a professional desoldering station but for most things it's more than good enough and has about 1/5th the price. It will take a bit of time to get used to it however. Desoldering is quite different from soldering :)
That is quite a decent desoldering tool. I would be curious to know how long the tips last for, because it seems to have decent suction for a cheap tool
Nice, I've been looking for a cheap desoldering gun (I looked at a Pace one and promptly had a stroke), always good to see a hands-on experience. Seems pretty good for the price! Do you think it would struggle to remove small pitch through-hole components using the smallest tip? Like 1.27mm spaced leads?
Depends on the seal you can get. It worked really well on the 2.54mm pin headers. And once I changed to bigger nozzles it also worked well on that big stuff, so it certainly had the power. I desoldered some of those temperature sensors which are quite small. Worked well on 2 but couldn't get the third out. So I think it will work (especially if you don't destroy the nozzle first by using the wrong one 😅)
Your station is more commonly known as a ZD-8915. It comes with identical accessories and behaves exactly the same. Price is 79 euro (tax included) and is available at Eleshop (=a good dutch electronics webshop).
It requires a little bit of practicing to avoid blocking the nozzle and to get a fluent workflow (temperature, suction times, reheating time ...), but it's a good station. Ideal for occasional desoldering without the frustrations of a manual pump and/or wick :-)
Hey, thnx for the comment! I've bought from eleshop before (my soldering station comes from there for instance). :D
Ok video. However, when you desolder, don't just hold the sucker tip onto the pin and press suck. One must hold the sucking tip at 90 degrees to the pin, (which you didn't do at times) then move it slight around then suck. Don't rush, and you'll will find you will get even better results...!!!
240°C is way too low, especially if you're desoldering anything manufactured with lead-free solder. When I was a full-time audio-equipment repair tech, I worked with Hakko and Aoyue desoldering station's typically set to 380°C, and if I was working with lead-free solder I might bump it up to 410 or 420C because leadfree solder has a higher melting point. It's also a lot easier to desolder anything manufactured with lead-free solder, or older products made with leaded solder, if you add some fresh solder to the joints first because the flux in your solder will reactivate the existing solder on the old circuit boards and make it easier for the machine to liquify and remove it.
I find it interesting that this machine uses a widely spaced coiled spring to tension the parts in the solder collection chamber, but does not use a fine type spring as a sort of solder collection cup like many of the modern inexpensive desoldering stations do. That solder collecting spring which was included in the Aoyue station at work functions poorly, and I prefer the older technique of stuffing a small wad of medium grade steel wool into the collection tube to cool the molten solder and flux fumes and catch them.
Great video, I had just bought one of these stations, but in a duel system (soldering iron & desoldering gun) excited to use it, very good explanation of the system, keep up the great work mate 🤙🏼🇦🇺
I love mine. Have had it for a little more than a year
Excellent for its price but understand its limitations - the 90Watt heating element is plenty to desolder single sided and double sided printed circuit boards including plated through hole PCB's - BUT what I bought mine to do was replace all 65 Capacitors on a faulty Computer Motherboard.
Computer Motherboards are double sided, entirely plated through hole design AND (as I discovered) have a SIX layer PCB meaning the fibreglass board has a layer of copper then an insulator layer then another layer of copper and so on until you have three electrically separate layers of copper on each side - with various inter layer and some through board interconnections as well.
What this means in practice is some Motherboards will have HUMONGOUS THERMAL MASS especially around certain parts/areas - so performing any soldering / desoldering work can be difficult especially in certain areas of the Motherboard where large areas of copper are left to act as a heatsink and/or RFI shield.
I discovered that with pre-heating the Motherboard the work became a lot easier - but also noted that a big name brand of soldering iron I was using even though it was only a 45Watt element could melt the old original solder where the 90Watt desolder heating element was not hot enough even at max power/temperature settings - probably due to conversion efficiency - the 45Watt soldering iron probably delivered nearly all of its 45W of heat energy to the solder joint while the 90Watt desolder element apparrently did not deliver all of its 90W heat energy to the joint to be desoldered - implication being the 90W heating element is only about 50% efficient at transferring heat.
That is how I found out why there is a market for the very expensive big name brand desolder stations - when they say they have a 120Watt heating element for desoldering they mean it is around 90% efficient so transferrs nearly all its heat energy effectively to the joint to be desoldered BUT unless you regularly work on SIX layer PCB's you will be very happy with the desolder tool in the video.
By the way the Motherboard I repaired by replacing all 65 Capacitors on still works perfectly 4 years later.
I've had this one (the ZD-8915) for about 5 years now and it's been doing pretty good for me. It's certainly not close to a professional desoldering station but for most things it's more than good enough and has about 1/5th the price. It will take a bit of time to get used to it however. Desoldering is quite different from soldering :)
they should make a 2 in 1 soldering/desoldering station once it sells well
Nozzle flux joints would have been easy very easy
That is quite a decent desoldering tool.
I would be curious to know how long the tips last for, because it seems to have decent suction for a cheap tool
Love your videos! Keep on going on
Nice, I've been looking for a cheap desoldering gun (I looked at a Pace one and promptly had a stroke), always good to see a hands-on experience. Seems pretty good for the price! Do you think it would struggle to remove small pitch through-hole components using the smallest tip? Like 1.27mm spaced leads?
Depends on the seal you can get. It worked really well on the 2.54mm pin headers. And once I changed to bigger nozzles it also worked well on that big stuff, so it certainly had the power.
I desoldered some of those temperature sensors which are quite small. Worked well on 2 but couldn't get the third out. So I think it will work (especially if you don't destroy the nozzle first by using the wrong one 😅)
Can it be used to desolder CPUs that are soldered to the motherboards and solder them back?
that thing work on 120 volts is level inside.