Smd rework / desoldering station & soldering iron

Hello everyone!

In my recent electronic works, the use of a hot air gun and an antistatic and adjustable iron have risen

I don't want blown diodes anymore and I want to be able to solder something more thant SOIC and the like (like BGA and other underside-pads)

So what I wanted basically is to ask you guys if you have ever come through these non-professional chinese hot air rework stations:

http://tinyurl.com/m8re5x

I already have used a professional station with everything from automatic desoldering iron to suction holder for small IC's, so what will be my level of disapointment if I buy and use such a cheap station?

If you have already tested these or know about it, please discuss

In any case I think I'll buy it because it is cheap, compact, and I need one (but if you have bad points enough against them, I'll avoid spending 100€ on this)

In my experience, the performance of the Chinese soldering iron and hot air station is exactly the same as the more expensive ones. Maybe the reliability is worse, but mine have not failed yet. For your home laboratory, there is no reason to buy a more expensive one.

Solder paste and hot air is the best way to solder QFP chips. Desoldering QFP chips is tricky, because it is easy to damage the board with overheating. If you can sacrifice the chip, I recommend you simply cut the legs off with a knife, then clean the pads with an ordinary soldering iron and copper braid. It is possible to desolder QFP chips using the hot air gun with the special shaped tip, but without the automatic vacuum lifter in the center it takes a lot of practice. The hot air is also useful for heatshrink tube etc...

However, this is not the right tool for soldering/desoldering BGA chips (the chip will move, and you can't reliably melt the balls without overheating the chip or the board anyway). The best way is to use an IR soldering station with a temperature profile. The cheapest way is to use a small toaster oven - you can watch the temperature with a thermocouple, or you can set the profile in an automatic controller.

However, this is not the right tool for soldering/desoldering BGA chips (the chip will move, and you can't reliably melt the balls without overheating the chip or the board anyway). The best way is to use an IR soldering station with a temperature profile. The cheapest way is to use a small toaster oven - you can watch the temperature with a thermocouple, or you can set a profile in an automatic controller.[/QUOTE]


There are toaster oven ramp controller kits for doing pcbs.

Steve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB1InDsWCjQ

thanks for your info, this is very valuable to help me in my choice

I agree perhaps BGA is not really suitable to work with, but at least if this could solder QFN and MLP chips, that would be really cool