Another vote for the Hakko 472D. You can pick them up cheaply as used equipment. Do note that if you prefer the gun style handle over the pencil style, you can interchange them. If you have shop air, there's an even cheaper Hakko 470B -- I've heard it's a better/more effective pump than the 472D's electric motor driven pump, presumably they sell for less since many people don't have shop air.
I initially avoided buying a Hakko station due to poor experiences with them at a previous job. There, they were so bad and unreliable that I just brought my own spring-type solder sucker from home and used that! Having rebuilt mine (purchased used, incomplete) and owned it for several years now, I'm pretty certain the issue was with the guy who was supposed to maintain it. They do require a lot of cleaning/maintenance, especially if you're working on old boards that never had the rosin flux removed. Thanks, Jonathan On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 7:59 AM, Peter Cetinski via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On Jul 13, 2017, at 3:31 AM, Eric Smith via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > > > > 2) vacuum desoldering gun: lots of people liked the Hakko 808, but it's > > discontiued. The Hakko FR-300 looks like a reasonable replacement, and > > sells for around $310. The drawback compared to the vacuum desoldering > > station with pencil tool is that the handpiece is much heavier and > bulkier > > since it contains the vacuum pump; this is probably not an issue if you > > don't use it to do a lot of desoldering in a single session. > > > > I recently purchased a Hakko FR300 for $259, which is my first experience > with a decent desoldering tool. I can’t recommend it enough if you have a > fair amount of desoldering to perform. Compared to solder wicking or a > solder sucker it really is a world of difference. It’s one of the best > tool investments I’ve ever made. > >
