Along these lines, I just got a new toy. It's a knock off of a Hakko
850 hot air station. This thing works a treat. I preheat the board
for a bit to limit the thermal shot and hold the wand over a part for
a couple of seconds and pry it up with a dental pic (have done 100
pin fqfps. Works amazingly well. I had been using chip quik alloys
before. This is a lot cleaner.
Also, it solders smt caps, resistors, other small descretes really
slick (with solder paste). I still prefer to do the high density
smts with the soldering iron though. The hot air doesn't seem to
damage the ceramic caps like I was doing with the solder iron.
Still, I need to get my toaster oven going. I've done a few boards
with it, but I don't have a tight temp controller on it yet so I'm
sure I'm cooking them too long.
Anyway i got the "Atten 850" hot air station through ebay. New
direct from Hong Kong was $154 --much cheaper than the Hakko's I've
seen listed...
--- "Ron Amundson" wrote:
> At one time I used a Metcal iron, its like another major step above
the Wellers. Wow did it work well for both solder and desolder, but
it was insanely expensive $1200US. As their were tips for each type
of IC package for desoldering. One could remove a 68pin fine pitch
device without damage in around a minute and that included the time
to change tips and reheat.