Our favorite tools have a new home on the wiki. Each week we’ll muse a bit about one of them. Have your own tool review? We’ll post that too!
Our trusty Aoyue 968 was the first real electronics tool we bought. It’s a three-in-one rework station with a soldering iron, hot air rework tool, and solder fume extractor, for around $100. Ian looked at it inside and out in a Hack a Day article a few years ago.
The adjustable temperature iron is a huge step up from the cheap fixed-temperature tools we used in the past. It takes standard Hakko tips, but we just replaced the first one recently after more than 5 years of heavy use. The first part to actually break was the handle of the soldering iron, probably from rough use while desoldering. A replacement iron assembly, with cable, tip, and everything, was only $14. The replacement iron came with a chisel bit we didn’t like, so the original tip went on the new handle.
Fume extraction won’t appeal to everyone, but we sure like it. A tube near the tip of the iron sucks up flux fumes and blows them out the rework tool. It makes soldering a lot more pleasant, though the pump can be a bit loud.
Hot air is a must for surface mount prototyping. The hot air tool worked great for about 5 years, but recently it seems to have a short in the temperature sensor wire. When the cable bends the wrong way, the temperature display jumps to maximum and it goes into an auto-shutdown mode. We bought the Aoyue 852 to replace the hot air part, but we wouldn’t hesitate to buy another 968 because it provided years of great service for a ridiculously low price.
We love this tool and highly recommend it to anyone.
The Aoyue 968 is pictured with the OptiVisor magnifier available at Adafruit. Buy it, it will make your life better.
There’s more tools too.