Notes on the Duratool (D00672) Desoldering Station

[bigfathairyvika]

Thanks to Pamphonica, I am now the owner of one super duper desoldering thingy. And "wow" , so much better for through hole desoldering.
Standard chinglish manual.
Other than that, easy to use, I'm a happy bloke.

[PaulR]

I have had one for several years and I wouldn't be without it having tried several different "manual" desolderers in the past. I have just sent off for a couple of spare glass tubes for it.

Mine was one of those supplied with the filter and support the wrong way round. I didn't realise this until I read an earlier thread on here.

[Nanozeugma]

I've been contemplating one of these for a while, but wonder how effective the device would be in desoldering electrolytics from a PC motherboard which uses lead free solder.
I have one where several electrolytics have vented and require replacement...

There is a video review of the device on YouTube, where the reviewer attempts desoldering where lead free solder has been used unsuccessfully. Applying some leaded solder was somewhat more successful, but not easy.

[SiriusHardware]

For 'difficult' jobs like that the trick is to pre-heat the general area you will be trying to desolder parts from with a hot air wand - not hot enough to melt the solder or damage the PCB, but really quite hot, before trying to use your desoldering gun to remove the component.

If you don't do that, most of the heat you are trying to apply to the component's pads will just be wicked away by the large cold area surrounding, especially if one of the component's pins is soldered to a big earth plane. That in turn leads to you applying heat to the component's pads for much longer than you really want to, increasing the chance that one of the pads will get burnt off the PCB.

Warm the surrounding area of the PCB as often as you need to, if you are removing multiple components one after the other.

[Alan Bain]

I've been looking for a good way to desolder EPROMS to read on the programmer (so here I don't want to damage the EPROM or the board, at least not until I have read the contents). The preheat trick sounds useful. I've got an ersa X-tool (the early straight one) which is great when it works but you do need the right tip size for the pin (and yes, being ersa they are expensive).

[DMcMahon]

After getting the D00672 a couple of weeks back, I used it today for the first time to remove and replace a couple of front panel potentiometers on a guitar amplifier whose legs were soldered into a PCB.

First attempt at 375 degrees struggled but at 385 degrees it worked very well.

David

[Pamphonica]

When doing larger joints (like those pot pins) I find that running more solder in first so that the tool can have a good "slurp" after 10secs or so of heating works well. I agree that higher temperatures that 375 work better for larger joints.

[DMcMahon]

The end of the pot legs were tightly bent over against the tracking which additionally made it a little harder to unsolder.

David

[SiriusHardware]

I find that running more solder in first so that the tool can have a good "slurp" after 10secs or so of heating works well.

Yes, it is - counter-intuitively - more or less standard procedure to generously top up the joints you are aiming to remove the solder from first, because desolder tools normally work better on a generous amount of solder than they do on a scarce amount.

In fact if your first attempt at clearing a lead /pad results in only 90% of the solder being removed, it is advisable to fully solder the joint again and attempt to clear the fresh solder 100% in one go rather than persist in trying to remove the 10%.

Also, if you are trying to desolder lead-free solder joints you can make your life a lot easier by topping up the joints with lead/tin solder rather than lead-free, adding lead-tin has the effect of lowering the melting point of the soldered joint.

And then, quite frankly, it's better to wick up all of the mixed lead free / lead-tin mix and, after fitting the replacement component, resolder the joint with 100% proper solder.

[Julesomega]

Following my request for advice on desoldering stations, I bought the RS PRO Desoldering Station 140W which looks to be from the same stable as these various Duratool models. Lamentably RS do not stock elements or bits for these so I have ordered the largest available bits from CPC, along with a replacement gun.

The most useful bit is the 1.5mm (hole internal diameter) supplied so it is a pity that CPC's largest is 1.3mm. For unsoldering vintage tagboards a slightly larger size would be even better. I rushed to try it out and immediately started removing components from a scrap board, and now have a large stock of reclaimed small RFCs, crystals and electrolytics. For items with many pins you obviously need the suction, but where you can pull out a single pin I discovered that you don't need the suction, nor any additional flux or new solder. For such work I reckon you need nothing more than a temperature controlled iron of 25W or more, with the bit filed to a cone and a hole drilled in the end. I found settings of 165 - 185°C were suitable for normal boards and tagstrips, or up to 305°C on a groundplane.

[Chris55000]

. . .Does anybody know if you can get the shiny metal sponge tray as a separate spare item?

. . .(Mine has gone missing somewhere!)

Chris Williams

[factory]

Originally Posted by Julesomega

Following my request for advice on desoldering stations, I bought the RS PRO Desoldering Station 140W which looks to be from the same stable as these various Duratool models. Lamentably RS do not stock elements or bits for these so I have ordered the largest available bits from CPC, along with a replacement gun.

The most useful bit is the 1.5mm (hole internal diameter) supplied so it is a pity that CPC's largest is 1.3mm.

The bits are sold by RS as a pack of 3 different sizes, 1mm 1.2mm 1.5mm, RS number 137-2296.
https://docs.rs-online.com/d204/0900766b815e20cd.pdf

David

[Julesomega]

Well done David, I couldn't find them anywhere, but there they are with "300 In stock", RS Stock No.: 137-2296