Hot air rework & soldering iron station

[George Heron N2APB]

I¹ve got this model Terry and love it.  It was the subject of lots of
discussion on the SDR Cube list earlier in the year and a number of us
bought one.

73, George N2APB



Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:19:03 -0400
From: "Terry Fox" <tfox at knology.net>
To: <tacos at amrad.org>
Subject: Hot air rework & soldering iron station
Message-ID: <5C13D6103DC24961989FEDAF230ABF03 at tfoxserver3>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I?ve been looking for an inexpensive hot air rework station for a while now,
the $20 embossing tool seems OK, but control of the hot air is minimal at
best, as the blister on my workbench can attest to.  A couple of weeks ago,
my Weller EC1001 finally gave up the ghost.  It would cost $140 for a new
iron assembly, which is about the only way to replace the bad cord.  I tried
to fix the cord, but it all stopped after that.  My Weller WTCPN just
doesn?t cut it.

Meanwhile, my searches came to the X-Tronic 4040 hot air rework and solder
station.  The price was $109 off ebay and amazon.  hmmm, $130 to replace the
$25+ year-old EC1001 wand, or about the same cost (after shipping) for a
combo solder station AND hot air.... I selected the X-Tronic.  I got it
today, and it looks pretty good. It comes with ten soldering tips, four
hot-air tips, and spare heating elements for both.  Three of the ten tips
are very fine, along the size of a Weller PTS-7, certainly good enough for
regular SMT work.  The tips are supposedly compatible with Hako.

I?ve turned it on, but have not done any serious soldering yet.  I thought
that anyone looking for a good deal on an inexpensive hot air & solder
station might be interested in this.  It is on sale at the ebay site for $99
for another day.  Just search for X-Tronic 4040, or here is the link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/X-TRONIC-4040-HOT-AIR-REWORK-SOLDERING-IRON-STATION-
/180672745995?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a10ef520b

Has anybody used this before??
Terry, WB4JFI


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