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Home Product Categories Hot-Air Rework TOL-10706
Hot-air Rework Station - 303D
sku: TOL-10706
Description: This hot-air rework station is great for professionals and hobbyists in need of tight temperature tolerances and large air flows. This unit displays a digital readout of the actual air temperature with a flow rate of up to 23L per minute. This very powerful unit can be used for multiple applications including standard SMD reflow/repair/removal, thermal IC stress testing, thermoplastic welding, and shrink-wrapping.
Dimensions: 224 x 126 x 110mm
Features:
- Closed-loop temperature control
- Heats up quickly
- Anti-static design
- Intelligent cooling system maintains airflow after the unit is powered off until the air temperature is below 100°C
- Temperature adjustment range: 100 ~ 480°C
- Handle length (including air line): 120cm
- Noise: <40dB
- 110VAC input
Includes:
- 303D Hot Air Rework Station
- Wand Holder
- x2 Round Nozzle Tips
Pricing
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Comments 57 comments
I need a bigger workbench.
Your workbench will never be the same. I cannot say enough good things about hot-air rework. These things rock and open up a bunch of new doors for prototyping (removing ICs, SMD IC bumping, etc). It’s a cool tool.
agreed. as i said in the product post, i reflowed my nvidia BGA video processor in my laptop with one of these just last weekend… worked like a charm. you can do almost anything with these.
Can you guys do a video showing how you do BGA? I’ve got an older one of these from you guys & would love to be able to place/solder BGA chips (since they’re usually the coolest ones), but am a bit unsure how to start.
that’s a tough one. it ‘can’ be done with a normal hot-air station, but it takes a LOT of practice to get it right. the correct way is with a BGA rework station.
I just evenly heated the chip with a hot-air station, let it cool a bit, heated a bit more, let it cool, heated it a bit more, etc. and it worked.
if you’re starting with a bare board and populating a BGA, it can be a lot harder. flux helps, but can also be really difficult to rinse out.
Which chip was it? I’ve got a Lenovo T61 with the Nvidia NVS chip (8400 gs). It has experienced the intermittent failure. I was looking at using the heat gun you folks sell to try a reflow. Do you think this hot air station would do a significantly better job? Thanks.
I think it was a 7600 something. Honestly, any kind of heat works. I’ve seen it done with hair dryers, blow torches, etc. All it needs is heat. The hot air rework is a lot easier, but you could use a hair dryer or the heaterizer…
I know its an old thread but I’ve recently had success with the T61 Nvidia issue by stripping the MB and placing it in the oven at 380F for 10min. I’ve seen others have success with this for other MBs, graphics cards, etc..
Getting this in October for sure! Will go nicely with my Sparkfun soldering station.
Yea I need one of these for that exact reason… as well as SMD work
Is it feasible to use your Hot Air Rework Station 303D to weld plastics?
Freaky question, I like it. I would say probably not. The width of air coming from the nozzle is good for ICs and PCBs, but may be too wide for joint welds. I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing, but if I was doing something like multi-unit construction, I would buy a soldering iron and sacrifice the tip and heater to the welding. Tell us more if you try it out.
I’d imagine if you were to fashion a tip to get the width of delivered hot air down, you could melt plastic together – but you might be better served using a plastic epoxy or CA glues that will melt the types of plastic your looking to join. Saving that, the ‘sacrificial soldering iron’ idea seems solid.
Just the right price point for 2012 Free Day!
I agree! Just picked one up ;–)
I’ve had this on backorder for quite awhile. What’s the ETA? I really don’t want to have to order it from somewhere else…
Second.
That box is amazing.
there’s even an RTFM sticker on the bottom. pure class.
Only if there was a 220VAC version…
Ive always wondered why people who need a 220vac version when you can just use a converter. Is there a reason? They don’t cost all that much.
You could use a transformer, but higher wattage ones do cost about the same as this whole product, at least in country I live in.
Does this replace the other Hot-Air rework station? the HR906? Dang, I liked the combo hot air/soldering iron…
Yes. This will be the only hot-air station we carry.
Not even something for the rest of the world, which has 220V?
Just get an Aoyue 968 station from Amazon or some other site.
Now I have to convince my boss that we need for our lab. Shouldn’t be too hard. :)
“Break” something that needs hot air to fix.
(*it helps if the broken item costs more to replace than a Benjamin.)
:)
I am not kidding you, you need one for you lab. These are amazing. Tell your boss some random guy on the internet said so.
But really, we got one at work, and then I got one at home because it was so awesome. I use it for soldering even when I could use an iron. Its 10x better for so many things.
No airflow meter on this one like the Aoyue 852 you had before… :(
I have a 968 with a airflow meter, and I never use the meter. Just turn it up to where it’s working for you. I can usually tell just by how it sounds.
What about the temp meter, do you use that or is it the same deal as the airflow meter – i.e. you just set it based on how it’s working?
At my school we have a hot air rework station. (Zefertronix i think) We have used to fix our ESC’s to Xbox 360’s (and build or robot communication boards now and then for our robots)
Do you know the VA rating?
This looks like a rebagged Aoyue 850A, only more expensive. Is this some other variety that is actually any better?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Aoyue 850A has no digital readout.
Just got this thing and it is great! I ‘ocasionally’ make errors when soldering parts onto boards and removing them with a soldering iron and solder wick is a pain and if its an IC its usually not even worth attempting. I just powered this baby up and removed about 10 parts in 2 minutes including a 48 pin LQFP which I never would have even attempted before. Oh – btw, it also melts desk protectors nicely. :)
What is the power consumption at 120VAC ? I need one for 230VAC so will need to run it from a drop down transformer.
Anyone have a good tutorial for how to solder SMD parts using this hot air station? Do you just point the nozzle at the part and go, or is it necessary to use another heater to preheat the board first, and follow a specific heating/cooling profile? Also can I get away with pre-tinning the pads with normal solder, instead of solder paste? The paste seems like a pain in the butt since it needs to be kept refrigerated, and I don’t want to keep it in the kitchen with my dinner, or pay distributors extra money to overnight ship it in a cool pack.
I would like to know about the pretinning instead of paste like he said ^^^
The advantage to paste is that it’s… a paste. Which means that it allows the part to sit level on the pads. You can pre-tin the pads with an iron and a touch of solder but if you have a tight-pitched part it may not want to sit on top of all of the little solder bumps the right way. It can be done for parts that have a small lead count. I solder ATMega328s by pre-tinning the pads with an iron then heating the pads in a circular motion with the hot-air while placing the IC with tweezers.
There are tons of variations on the market, but two main types – The type using a Diaphragm pump like this one (been around longer), the other type using a brushless motor in the handle itself.
Has anybody tried both and any advantages / disadvantages?
Are there any oils or other gases (from heated plastics, resistors etc) that could come out with the hot air? Is the hot air (other than the obvious temperature issue) safe to breath?
Any idea when these will be back in stock?
Where would one procure nozzles for this, do Aoyue nozzles fit?
Here you go: http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/48
I’m aware of those, I was referring to sizes and shapes that SF does not stock.
I have a newbie general question regarding Hot Air Rework. I have recently bought this Hot Air Rework station to be able to bump ICs and remove them, etc. My question is how do semiconductors not burn out or fry under the heat? granted you are not applying heat directly to the chip, but I have always been told with conventional soldering not to keep the iron on a pin for any longer then you have to in order to protect the part. With applying ‘solder melting’ level of heat to all pins wouldn’t that be a problem? I ask this, but I also must admit that I have been doing some work with this unit and have not had any of these issues as of yet. I just am wondering how concerned I should be about this.
The IC package is built to be able to dissipate a good ammount of heat. Think about in a production environment where ICs are attached to boards in a reflow oven! While this is the case, it is still important to subject the component to the smallest amount of heat needed to accomplish the task. This is why a variable tempurature rework station is important! Consult your data sheet and set the tempurature accordingly. Working with hot air does require a bit of technique, which you will acquire over time. Practice on scrap boards and expect to fry a few chips along the way.
I want to buy this Hot-air Rework Station, but the day off, they have been all that remained, there is a date when you can buy this product?
I have the same question, but with the words rearranged somewhat.
Just used my Hot Rework Station(303D) for the first time and I must say this tool is AWESOME! Very quite, good size temp display. Also like the automatic cooling after shut down. This opens a new world for me.
Any idea when this will be back in stock?
I just got this thing. I stuck a few magnets on there to hold my other nozzles.
Just got this today, and for the price I couldn’t be happier. I was afraid that I would be disappointed with the build quality (as I have been with several tools that SparkFun sells), but honestly I think it’s just about where it should be. The readout is nice, the knobs work, it comes up to temperature pretty quickly.
A word of warning though!
The temperature control on this station is not the most sophisticated. I tested the output temperature with a thermocouple and at steady state it seems to hold the temperature to within 10-20 degrees of the setpoint: Good enough as far as I’m concerned though I wouldn’t call it “tight tolerance.” The real issue is that the controller has a tendency to DRASTICALLY overshoot the setpoint as it comes up to temperature. By up to or over 100 degrees! So if you are going from, say, 150 to 250, the temperature might briefly go as high as 350. Only for perhaps a few seconds before the controller catches up and brings it down, but long enough to damage components if you are not patient. There is the same behavior to a lesser degree when moving to a lower temperature.
Again it is not an issue as long as you wait maybe 15 seconds after changing the temperature before using it – assuming what you are doing is temperature critical.
Otherwise it looks like a great tool! I am excited to have it on my bench. :D
Just got mine today, yea… I should have invested in one of these a LONG time ago.
Just used one of these to reflow a 10 lead 3x5mm DFN and I was able to solve a short in about 30 minutes. Not bad for the first time using this tool, as it has basically paid for itself in the first use.