YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

ok .just ordered this one .. https://www.antex.co.uk/soldering/so...ations/760rwk/

[stj]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

that's a lot for a chinese 858d with a CS iron bolted on!
i may be able to source cheap bits for those irons if your interested.

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

that's a lot for a chinese 858d with a CS iron bolted on!
i may be able to source cheap bits for those irons if your interested.

Chinese ..hahaha ...its British .. and excellent customer service .. got it lots cheaper on ebay ..am hoping its actually going to get here and be ok .. have no idea how seller could sell for £170 .

[diif]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

have no idea how seller could sell for £170 .

It's listed on Amazon at £169.98 by Antex. A common ploy by manufacturers/distributors to list a high MRRP.

My first iron was an Antex, bought from Maplins IIRC. It was only 15/20W though .

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

its expensive at rs and other suppliers .
been using antex for many years . had an element go bad and it was shocking me so i contacted them and sent it in for examination . was a pin hole that should never had happened . the boss was pleased i told them . i had bought it secondhand at least 10 years before that .
i ended up with a new iron with silicone lead and new cable for my old one . had a spare element waiting for it so have 2 now .saves changing bits . i call that excellent customer service .

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

just got the antex one today . tried it out quickly on a scrap board . will need to practice some more before doing it for real to get a feel for it and find best temp and air flow flow that suits me . it seems to be taking too long to remove chips and lots of smoke before solder melts . might be the flux i am using . am setting about 350c . 360c seemed a little better . the iron seems lots better than my 30 watt antex ones .

[stj]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

you dont need flux to desolder with air, it will just burn.
you use the flux when putting parts down.

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

ok . thought it would help same as with using an iron . not that i do that as much as adding more solder .

[momaka]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

... and lots of smoke before solder melts . might be the flux i am using .

More than likely, it is.

But like stj said, you don't need it during desoldering with hot air.

[petehall347]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

i need to pre heat first .. still need to try this but very expensive unless i stand there for ages doing it with hot air .. its not like i make any money doing this stuff .

[momaka]

Re: YH-853AAA soldering station any good ?

^ The kitchen stove could be your friend.

I have gas range here, and it works amazing for pre-heating and bottom-heating during reflows. You might think the flame is bad for the PCB, but it actually doesn't harm anything (when the range is set to very low, of course). In fact, none of my reworked PCBs look darkened - something that is inevitable with IR from what I've seen so far.