[drh4683]

Here it is. I bought the weller WRS1002X yesterday. I went to fry's electronics in Downers Grove. The store is a total mess, very poorly organized parts department. They sometimes have what you need in stock. 90% of the time its out of stock, and if you're the last one to get what was on the shelf, it will never be stocked again.......

However, they had the cheapest price on this particular unit, so I bought from them. They had one on display and the guy working at the store let me try it out. All I could do was melt a blob off a roll of solder and see how good it could pick it back up. Needless to say, I was impressed. The vacuum is electrically activated by a button on the soldering iron. Picked up the molton solder instantly with no delay. Simply vanished in a few milliseconds.

Im always a manual reader, even if its an obvious simple tool before using. The thing is build rock solid, metal cabinet, very heavy. Extremely high quality insturment in every way. I turn it over to see where it was made and saw the "Made in Germany" sticker, so that explained alot. I didn't know these were German designed and built units. As I read the manual, there were many remarks relating to "this is an extremely high quality precision engineered instrument" etc. So they were confident that you could buy no better. Well, I would hope not as it was a very expensive peice. Ive been working on electronics for 15 years and in the past 10 years have I taken electronic repair work seriously, yet I never owned one of these. Ive gotten by with the soldapullit and it works OK, but I hate the mess they make of the ejected solder pieces all over the place. When Im in the middle of a repair, Im not always concerned about keeping the ejected solder in one area, it basically gets ejected into the bench or on the floor so I can move on and I pick it up later. Its nice to step up to such a nice peice of equipment that makes the most annoying part of the job so simple and keeps the shop perfectly clean of solder debris.

I have a 72 Motorola color TV that was in need of a recap on the deflection board. It uses those "euro" caps which always leak. This was my first use of the weller desoldering station. The solder sucked clean off each terminal to the point of the component actually falling out of the pc board. Its range is up to 999F, but about 695-715 is excellent for PC servicing. I have no doubt it will work excellent on point to point circuitry.

Yes its an expensive tool, but if you work on electronics often enough and want a clean looking repair, this is the way to go.