Vacuum cleaner brand in the UK called Vax; for a while they used 'Nothing sucks like a Vax!' as a slogan. It really annoyed the Digital Equipment Corporation. 😁
Great tip...I have found putting a piece of heatshrink over the tip and protruding out a fraction gives a little bit more suction and also protects the p.c.b against the sucker bouncing. Hope this helps someone.
I use dielectric grease on mine but I think lithium might be better for older seals to swell them. BTW, thanks to your help, I fixed my old faithful and posted it on my channel.
I find a lot of videos only swear by using a certain method of sucking up solder. After my years of trial and error, I find I use them all! in one way or another. I have a sucker, I use solder wick, and I even have a good ProsKit pump machine. All have their purpose depending on the job and the boards your working on. I find the old boards from the 60's much easier to use solder wick on, the pump machine is too powerful, too easy to rip those traces and tracks off. If I'm only doing a couple of solder joints, the manual pump is as good as any, but if I'm recapping a board or so, the ProsKit surely makes things quicker and easier. They still come with flaws however, as they still block up with solder like a manual unit from time to time. It's not all a bed of roses, but regular maintenance is the key. None of us like our suckers to be suckerless at the end of the day.
I don't do this for a living. I can't justify 500 for a hakko solder sucker. If it was 100 I would probably spring for it but 500 is just too much. I make less than 500 a month, hell I probably make less than 300 a month fixing this crap. Keep in mind that much of what I work on is stuff that is given to me and I fix and try to sell. Much ends up going to the thrift store. So there is really no money being made here. Therefore I don't spend it on things like soldering stations. I have a 50 air station the soldering iron I got free. The tektronix scope was free. I retired over 20 years ago from the business. I still take on customer projects but don't kid yourself I don't make money doing it. I am basically working for less than a kid flipping burgers make if I were to look at paid hours.
Dyson.. I used the battery powered one at my Mother's house and I saw 3 different things that will cause issues in the future.. things to do with how the cord gets friction when you mount the unit on the wall.. very clear failure points and how the tip goes into the sleeve to charge.. also the battery is up at the handle making it relatively heavy - which I would assume could really screw up someone's wrist..especially older folk - if the battery design was near the bottom where the suction / rotation unit is.. it would have that extra weight at that point to make it easier to contact what you are trying to clean. I think it's a very poor design but has potential in some areas like how you can empty it out ect but i noticed it gets a very rank smell as well over time.
I gave up on manual solder suckers a few years ago, they are great when new and for the first few times that you clean and grease them, but after a while they just wear out. I have an excellent desoldering tool as part of my surface mount rework station. This also requires regular cleaning but after 3 years of daily use it still removes the solder.
As someone who does a project about once a month, the one I bought a decade ago (a chonky unit) still works very well. Great for desoldering chips, where I prefer it over the solder wick. I had my eye on the desoldering stations but it's hard to justify spending money on as an amateur.
I had a powered solder vacuum at the shop but it went though so many tips and was always clogging up. Used to piss me off because every time when I needed it, it needed a new tip and at 20 bucks a pop after I changed a few the asshole I worked for started docking my cheque when he saw them show up on the invoice. I had to get the parts guy to invoice it as cleaner or anything but a tip for the solder sucker. Eventually I just went back to the manual pump.
@@12voltvids That a**hole you worked for would not like paying for new tips @ $20 each. I buy my new tips in packs of 10 and they last me about a year or so, now that i am due to retire they will last a lot longer. Rework stations are like a lot of tools, good ones are expensive and cheap ones cost a fortune in spare parts,
@@stragulus I only bought my rework station due to the high number of items that now use tiny surface mount components and it was used most days, for a hobbyist they are an expensive luxury.
Yes, very true. I bought one of those fancy aluminum ones after my cheap plastic one broke, but the threads are very fine and is super easy to cross-thread. You must be super careful when reassembling after cleaning.
Spray silicone lube doesn't allow solder to bond to plastics. For this app is the best. I clean the inside and o-ring with a soft brush and brand new it is. The only real problem on these sυckers 😇 is the tips wearing up.
