Sph 4, 2024

surface mount soldering

In May of 2024, I purchased a hot air rework station. The one I bought is a Yihua 959D. Current price is $63.

My Yihua turns on when you pick it up and off when you "park" the gun. It also has 3 channels to remember temperature settings. It has a temperature readout

You can change units. Turn the unit off. Hold down one of the buttons that changes temperature and keep holding it down while you turn the unit on. It will display C or F. Use the same button to change the setting.

Am I in C or F mode? Watch the display as it counts down before shutoff. If it counts down to 100 you are in C mode. If it counts down to 212 you are in F mode.

How to use it

When it first arrived, I played with it a bit using some scrap boards I have laying around. I set the temperature to 750F (400C), which is too hot most likely, but works. The Sparkfun video suggests 340C (close to 650F), but this depends on the solder being used. It needs to be somewhat higher since heat is going into the PCB and components, as well as mixing with ambient air.

Be aware that your bench and anything close can be damaged (or ignited) by the heat. If you see smoke or visual damage on the PCB, you have your temperature set much too high. I happen to have a 6x6 inch piece of ceramic tile laying around, and put that on my desk under the microscope where I intend to work.

I just used mine, set to 750, to remove an 8 pin ATtiny13 from a flashlight board. It was easy. I set air flow to the minimum (1) and it did not blow the little 8 pin SOIC off the board. Solder on some nearby components might also have melted, but they stayed in place and the solder hardened again as soon as I was done.

The above video looks good. I should watch it someday.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's Electronics pages / tom@mmto.org