Looking for SMD rework station, suggestions?

[redrumloa]

I don't want to pay thousands of dollars to do the occasional SMD repair. Can anyone recommend a value brand SMD rework station? I see a couple real cheap ones on eBay, as long as they work I may buy one.

[Castellen]

If you don't want to spend a lot, look out for one of the Hakko 850 rip-offs.  There are loads of them coming out of China under various "brands".  e.g. Lukey 850
I've been using one of these for several years now without any problems, and it does get a lot of use.  Be aware that the quality will probably vary a lot between units, I suspect I was lucky with mine.

[AmigaFun]

I was considering getting one from here.

http://www.pcb-soldering.co.uk/index.php

I need to replace all the SIMM sockets in my A4000, and if I pluck up the courage to do it, then I will buy one from here. Cheap enough to work once or twice.

[darksun9210]

cool,
speaking as a total novice,
what would i need to:-
remove/replace through hole mounted sockets and componants, and surface mount stuff?
specificly, 72pin sim sockets, 68040/060's, surface mount voltage regulators / caps / IC's...

would one of these stations be helpfull?

i get the idea of a temperature controlled soldering iron, and will probably get one, but i don't get how a hot air gun could be usefull? also, de-soldering through hole mounted stuff, whats best? solder wick, or a vacuum pump? or ...?

blatantly i'm going to be doing amiga work so i want to get it right! :-)  but i'll be practicing on old PC mainboards till i get it right :-D
the last thing i want to do is to goto maplin's to get a £5 soldering iron and start poking my miggy will it! :lol:

[Chain]

Im using AYOUE (or its AOYUE? well whatever... hotair rework, and its worth every penny, fantastic machine for that price.

look at some of my pics, ie. http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2174
http://www.amiga.org/gallery/index.php?n=2174
it will be imposssible to do it without it. with ayoue 850 its a piece of cake  :-D

Ive once also replaced memory chips on Viper520 turboboard (pretty rare, and with directly soldered 8MB in four chips),  with chips desoldered from simm sticks. few minutes and its runnin like new.

advices:
1) learn how to use it on some peecee boards or similar
2) use a lot of flux and quality solder paste

brand isnt important imho, and i can only recommend that korean blackbox! (ayoue). most brands uses same nozzles iirc

[Protek]

Would the Dremel Versatip be any good as SMD rework tool?
Dremel Versatip

[chiark]

Likewise, I've got an AOYUE unit but went for the 768 which has a very good soldering iron with fume extraction along with the hot air functionality.

It is an absolute pleasure to use!

I got it from buyaoyue.com , and recommend them.  They *might* be able to offer a discount - I did ask about offering a discount to eab and amiga.org and they said they'd consider it...  However, they're UK based.

[nBit7]

What type of packages do you want to be able to do rework?
I assume we are not talking BGA.

Do you need to remove parts without destroying them?
If do you will need a hot air station.
If not a good iron is all you need (unless we are talking LCC packages).

[darksun9210]

ok, i'm pretty much sold on the hot air station idea,
i'm looking at an aoyui968 repair station, and i think i may be asking for it for xmas :lol:

what i'll need it for:-
72pin simm socket replacements on A4000
Bliz1240 -> 1260 upgrade, CPU change and voltage regs
BlizPPC040 -> PPC060 upgrade, cpu change and voltage adjustment
DCE bliz1260 simm socket change from angled to inline
A4000/A1200/A600/CD32 cap replacement
A600 trapdoor memory expansion build
A600 accelerator build
030 -> 060 socket adapter with memory build (yeah right ;-) )

i still don't get how you solder/desolder with what is to all intents and purposes a super hot mini hair dryer? :lol:

[CodePoet]

@redrumloa

I bought a stack of Xytronic soldering/desoldering equipment from HEI (howard electronics) about 6 years ago, and they're still going great!

I've worked on boards from medium to large complexity without any issues at all Here's a linky: http://www.howardelectronics.com/xytronic/lf8000850dtp.html

Mine is the NON-leadfree version of the above link. I'm sure they'd do the same non-LF version much cheaper if you ask since they're trying to get rid of them. Below are a few links of a couple of homebrew PCBs I've assembled with it:

Processor board
Simulator board
Board I can't talk about yet

...And here is a commercially produced PCB from ourPCB.com, but was assembled using the above rework equipment:

GPSBiTS tracker

Hope this helps

[Quagmire]

I bought one of theose Hakko knock offs from China and it's worked fine for over a year so far :-)I use it to repair Apple iBook / Pwerbook Pcbs.

  the only part I wouldn't advise scrimping on is a decent fine tipped soldering iron setup as ones from china a rubbish.

[billt]

i still don't get how you solder/desolder with what is to all intents and purposes a super hot mini hair dryer?

Super hot air heats up solder, solder melts, remove part. What's not to understand?

I've even used an el-cheapo hot air paint stripper gun to do this before. Consider this, how are you going to get a desoldering iron onto all those BGA pads? You can't, you need a hot air flow to heat up the entire chip until it comes loose. Same for applying a new BGA. Just watch out for temperature sensitive items. I've exploded capacitors and batteries before with the hot air, and the insides of a coin battery do not taste good.  :crazy:

[billt]

Anyone have suggestions of what is good for ROHS solder rework with the airflow tools? I'm not up to date on temps required for that kind of thing. The 857A++ sounds nice but the temps dont' go as high as the 850A++. (from the buyaoyue.com mentioned) Not sure if the different style air pump or adjustable airflow control makes any meaningful difference.

[darksun9210]

Super hot air heats up solder, solder melts, remove part. What's not to understand?

:lol: well i got that bit, i just didn't get how it removes the solder cleanly, or if it poses a risk to the PCB or other components :-D

so it doesn't remove the solder, and i have a heck of a clean up job, plus i may have toasted some other components aswell. hmmmm... i don't think i'll be using a hot air gun to remove the 040 from a blizzPPC card  :-o :lol:

[Eclipse]

Thank god I don't have to adhere to ROHS crap.