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Spent $60 on a hot air station from Amazon and it died after 3 boards
Bought one of those generic 858D units to replace my old Weller. Worked fine for a week, then the heating element started flickering on the third board I tried to reflow. Opened it up and the ceramic heater was cracked in half. Anyone know a decent budget unit that won't catch fire?
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abbychen14d ago
Wait, did you at least get a nice little smoke show before it gave out? I've had two of those 858D clones and both of them had the same problem where the handle would just randomly stop heating mid-solder. You'd think for sixty bucks they'd at least use a ceramic heater that doesn't crack like a cheap lightbulb. Honestly, if you want something that won't double as a fire starter, look into the Yihua 8786D or just save up for a real Hakko. Seems like all the budget stations are just the same parts in a different colored plastic shell these days.
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