William H.
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2025
This unit seems to get less than enthusiastic support online. I think it does a good enough job for the very limited use that I have for a hot air machine. It comes with a full set of useful accessories. I have used it to move SMD resistors for ESP32 antenna connectors and remove SMD LEDs to save power on battery powered projects and I think it does a fine job. It is simple enough to set a temperature and fan speed and get the job done. For me it has been a useful to to keep on the bench. With a little practice on some junk boards you can get the hang of it.
Zigboo
Reviewed in Canada on January 10, 2025
My soldering skills are not very good. Neither are my de-soldering skills. I don't do either on a regular basis, but do attempt both whenever I have some electronic thing that isn't working. The power port on my laptop broke, and I didn't really want to buy a new laptop because of it. Although not so good at or comfortable with soldering, I have no issues tearing apart PCs or laptops, so I found a couple of videos online where people were replacing the power port, and figured I'd give it a try, because even if it went bad, a laptop I can't power is pretty useless anyway.I got the motherboard out quickly, and started trying to remove the power port. It had six pins soldered to the board, in a relatively small area. After hours and hours of trying with a de-soldering iron, a soldering iron and solder removal pump, lots of flux and lots of new solder, I had made almost no progress. One of the videos I watched had a heat gun attached to a stand, and the guy in the video just turned it on, but the port under it and a few seconds later, just pushed it out/off of the motherboard. I hadn't paid much attention to that assuming it was some complex/expensive set-up, but after getting nowhere for many hours, watched it again, then searched Amazon, only to find this and other units that really aren't that expensive.I went through many of the options available, and it looks like as with many things on Amazon, this unit is made by someone and white-labelled by lots of companies. This one had good reviews and came with a good bundle of stuff, so I gave it a go. Glad I did.Along with this, I also ordered some heat-resistant tape- something else I had never used. The unit is bigger than I expected, but it feels solid. Connecting everything together is quick and painless, so it's ready to go in no time. The controls are easy to use, and the auto on/off feature is great. I covered everything surrounding the power port with the heat tape and tried heating it with the recommended settings. No luck- the solder wasn't melting. After a few tries I did some more Googling, specifically around using this type of tool, and found a couple recommending a higher heat setting for what I was doing. I tried that and had immediate success. Within a handful of seconds of applying heat and gently pushing on the port, it popped right out. From that point it was pretty easy to solder in the new port and re-assemble the laptop.Although I don't do large amounts of soldering, one thing I do once or twice a year is replace the micro switches in my Logitech trackballs, because they fail frequently. Disassembly and re-assembly of the trackballs is easy, and so is soldering in a new switch. Getting the old switch out always takes me 30-60 minutes, so I cringe whenever I have to do it. This will be a game changer for that process. I know after a quick tape job, I'll have the old ones out in seconds with this. I definitely recommend this.
Paul L
Reviewed in Canada on April 21, 2025
Good unit for the money, it seems pretty well built and works good.NOTE: TEMP IS CELCIUS 100c-500c. I printed out a label to attach on its face for reference.I watched videos and procticed on a scrap board first, as there's a tiny bit of a learning curvelike any new to you technology.I already knew by the videos that the cradle has magnets to a magnetic switch to turn the head off when not in use,it takes a moment before the temp reading starts dropping,but don't rely on that because as I found out if you set it just right on the cradle, it won't shut down.There's different videos showing units identical to this one needing modifications to power miswiring,but that was the first thing I checked and everything is wired correctly
Bobby
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2024
After seeing mixed reviews from various places, I wasn’t expecting too much from this $40 hot air station. Some reviews said the cord was wired incorrectly but the one I got had the correct polarity. I also expected it to take a while to flow solder but to my surprise it only took a few seconds to release an old usb c port. I’m pleasantly surprised with how well this little machine performs. Hopefully it continues to do well but I don’t expect it to last a lifetime for the price… hopefully I’m surprised again!
Ray
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2023
I have read and watched some bad reviews and videos on this style of air gun. So going into it I expected to have to do quite a bit of modifications. To my surprise it is grounded properly. Cord is correctly wired for the USA. Air flow is more than adequate. The temperature seems to be pretty darn close. With the addition of a replacement heating element and some well... tools (come on it's not expensive so not everything can be great). It's a nice starter package and worth the money. A lot better than I expected.
Blas Castaneda
Reviewed in Mexico on February 25, 2023
Por el precio es un buen producto y cumple para lo que se uso.
Andrew Nelson
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2022
Rarely am I this happy with an inexpensive tool but this one is just perfect. I love that I pick it up, it turns on, I set it down and it goes into cool down mode. The temperature seems to be pretty accurate and stable, which is what I need.
Manuel
Reviewed in Mexico on July 19, 2022
Es de buen material.y trabaja muy bien.
Animal Lover
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2022
I haven't used mine for much yet. But just using it to shrink tubing on wires is a game changer!Heats pretty quickly, not obnoxiously loud, comfortable to hold, controls are quick and direct, with a decent feel of quality, and the whole thing is pretty stable for as narrow as it is. It's very easy to get the tool on the cradle.It does come with short cords. The power cord is almost comically short, but it's just a computer cord, and those probably outnumber humans at this point, so that's an easy fix.The cord connecting the base to the wand is 36". About a foot short, but not a big deal. For what I payed, I love it.
Nando
Reviewed in Canada on March 14, 2021
Let's start with dislike.As I have found out online, the POWER coming into the unit is all wrong.1) The fuse is on the neutral and not the hot.This is 100% wrong, but it is integral with the power connector and you cannot rewire it.2) Most important fault, the HOT is not switched by the power switch.Use a multimeter to make sure the HOT (right side of the power plug) goes to the switch.I exchanged the two power leads on the inside of the power plug.IF the Neutral failed or the Fuse breaks, the HOT is still powering the main board andif there is a problem you can get a shock with HOT and GROUND.Good side:1) The back and front panel is grounded.2) the magnet reed switch in the hand unit is epoxied in place so it is not floating around.3) the external steel of the handle is grounded.4) It gets mighty hot and fast.5) the fan holes are un-obstructed for proper ventilation.I tried it after I exchanged the power wires in side the power plug and everything worked as expected.Good price.
James Longworth
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2021
I purchased this about 3 weeks ago. I checked the power cord based on other comments and mine was fine. I was initially impressed given the price. It seemed to work good on the small stuff but lacking on the high end temp settings for larger parts. Based on my experience, the temperature setting is way off and the calibration pot is a joke.After the third or forth use, the display and heat feature stopped working but the blower (which runs on AC) continued to run. I was in the middle of doing something and needed it that day and I really didn’t want to go through the hassle of returning it. I opened it and checked the circuit. The board is decent quality and it is an easy to follow layout. I checked a few of the input parts and took some measurements and found the 5v regulator shorted. It was a brand name TO-220 package but was designed without a heat sink. I replaced the part and added a heat sink. It’s working fine now. So far, so good,
Evan
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2020
Before plugging this in, I ran it through some safety checks. Search for a video called "Safety Checkout of a 858D Hot Air Rework Station" for some tips. This model isn't exactly the same as the one in that video, since this one has a detachable power cable and handle cable, but it should give you an idea of the things to look out for.On mine, the polarity was correct internally, and an initial ground check found that all the sides of the case and the exposed metal of the plug were grounded, but after I opened it up only the back plate was grounded. I think there was a marginal connection from the back plate to the other plates through one of the screws. To fix, I crimped some ring connectors on a piece of wire and connected it from the ground post on the back plate to the one of the screws holding the side/top case to the bottom. (One of these had a nut, which I assume is there because the threads in the bottom plate had stripped out.)When I checked the wiring of the provided power cable, the hot and neutral leads were swapped. I replaced with a different cable I had lying around.One thing to note: when the switch is on, one of the pins on the connector going to the handle is connected to the hot AC line, even if the heating element is off. (I assume they're switching the neutral line.) There's also a ground pin in that connector. So if you have the handle disconnected and touch the pins while the power is on, you might get hurt.I don't plan on poking these pins while the thing is on, so I'm not worried about this.Functionally, this seems to work fairly well. Heats up pretty quickly, cools down a little more slowly when you put it back in the cradle. The range of air speeds seems reasonable to me, but this is my first experience with a hot air rework tool.
Axel Rietschin
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2019
The quality is pretty decent considering the unbeatable price. The temperature was quite a bit too hot compared to the display out of the box, but I was able to calibrate it pretty perfectly using a thermocouple and my Tektronix instrument, after that the temperature was pretty consistent across the range. One pleasant surprise was the auto on/off as you put the handle on the provided hook. It also comes with a bunch of handy small accessories, overall very satisfied with the purchase so far although I’ve yet to do some actual work with it, but looking good so far, again in particular at that price. Pleasantly surprised!