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Desolder station choice

Another vote for the Duratool subject to the advice from MJS above. Keep it clean and you can extend tip life a bit by not leaving it powered up when idle. Definitely reduces the risk of pcb damage and very handy if you need to transplant rare and obsolete chips from scrap boards. Downsides - the fan is noisy and it's a bit fiddly to empty the solder collection tube.
 
Still love the Duratool, but this video is worth a look if you're planning to buy one:
hackaday.com

Comparing Desoldering Tools

[Lee] has a Hakko FR301 desoldering gun and a Duratool knockoff. He freely admits that the Hakko is probably better, but he wonders if it’s good enough to justify being four times as expensiv…
hackaday.com hackaday.com
 
Dowser said:
Dragging this up from the dead - are folks still happy with their Duratool units? Time I finally invested in something :)

Thanks, Richard
Click to expand...
Its OK, the iron is a bit awkward to get into tight spaces. seems efficient enough although I only have a soldering iron and spring loaded solder sucker to compare it too!
 
I saw this thread on the tram earlier and was going to post Lee (More Fun Making It)’s video as I think I agree with him. I bought a Hakko FR301 several years ago and love it, but it is just so expensive now. I think it was £310 when I bought it from an EU shop before The Brexit Catastrophe. The current price is just crazy.

I do really like it. It makes previously daunting desoldering jobs almost comedically easy. Just ‘moo gun it’ and whatever it was just falls out of the board even if it is a multi-legged chip. Replacing tired sockets on old 8 bit computers becomes so easy. As such I’d definitely get a desoldering station, but I can’t answer the value thing. I do like buying nice stuff I feel will last though, so I’ve no regrets at all with things like the FR301 or my Fluke 87V. Hopefully they’ll last me forever.

Here’s Lee’s video embedded, hopefully it will get him some more views/subscribers over the years:

 
I have seen people using the traditional copper braid technique so prevalent in the 60’s to great effect, might be worth giving it a go.
 
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