Cheap De-Soldering Station works GREAT!

[ohohyodafarted]

I have been trying to buy a used Pace or other brand of used de-soldering station for use in recaping my tv chassis. But either the particular unit up for auction is either in very bad condition or the price gets way out of line for a use piece of equipment, most of which are sold "as-is".. I was getting very discouraged until a did a Google search and happend upon this company's web site in Mesa Arizona. It's called Circuit Specialists.

The stuff they sell is mostly imported from China, so I was a little hesitant to buy this unit, but I figured for $119 new, what do I have to lose. So I ordered this unit. I got it today and I am THRILLED with how well it works. It has enough heat power to heat up most old point to point solder connection lugs, and on a lug with to many components with heavy guage leads, I just add additional heat from a second soldering iron and that does the trick. 9 times out of 10 there is enough heat in the desoldering iron itself to do the job.

Here is a link to the web page


http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/8013



And on top of that this unit qualifies you for a free gift. I elected to take their free digital multi-meter. I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened the box. This is a fantastic little meter. It even comes with a temperature probe. Very Cool!


I know that some people just clip off the old part and use j-bends on the ends of the leads. Everyone has their own way of doing things, but I like to remove the old components from the solder lugs and attach the new caps right to the lug rather than pig-tailing to the stubs of the old leads. It gives a more professional result and it looks better.

Anyhow to sum things up, if you do any amount of re-caping, and you unsolder the old components from the solder lugs like I do, then this tool is well worth the asking price. It will make the job SO MUCH EASIER I can't begin to tell ya!

This weekends project is to re-cap my Stromberg Carlson TC125 12 inch opera glass set. Cabinet is already refinished, I was just waiting for this desoldering station to arrive so I could try it out.

Only two more weeks to the ETF convention. See Ya There!

[zenithfan1]

That is very cool, I might get one!

[Ultra-Hog]

Ditto what zenithfan1 said!

Excellent post, great find and a great review!

Thank you!

[andy]

...

And to think, for 30 years I've been using my old blue (spring loaded) Soldapullit... :-)

I happened to stumble across this post earlier today while looking for help with my first TV restoration. Even though I do a lot of restoration work on vintage computers, I would *never* have considered actually investing in a DE-Soldering station. (I often still use my old 30w pencil, in lieu of the more expensive Soldering station.)

But, thanks to your post, I hope to receive mine before the week is out. :-)

Thanks for the great info!

[Eric H]

Man, I so want one of these!
A desoldering station would make it so much easier to recap a set, not to mention the joy of not having hot solder blobs splashing on my fingers.