NEWACALOX Hot Air Rework Station 500°C Soldering Station with Hot Air Gun, Airflow Adjustable, Desoldering Station for BGA IC, SOIC CHIP, QFP, PLCC, etc.

So, I received my Hot Air Rework station on Wednesday and excitedly pulled it out of the box and "assembled" it (if you consider attaching a bracket with 2 screws, the cable end of the hot air wand and the power cord assembly). Browsed through the manual before going further. The tools it comes with are pretty decent and will come in very handy for all my projects! I flipped the power switch, set the Air knob to 8 and dialed in the temp at 300℃ and lifted the hot air wand off the cradle! Oh glorious day! This bad boy started blowing and heating instantly and reached temperature within seconds! For...30 seconds, then EVERYTHING DIED!! The display was out, the hot air wand was silent.....nothing, nada, gone baby gone! So, I pulled the fuse below the power socket and checked for continuity with my meter...it's good! I check the power cord...121 VAC, good there too! Next step was to reach out to Amazon so that I could get in touch with the seller. I sent the seller an email and received an answer the same day. We exchanged several emails asking me about troubleshooting a few basic things (which were already done) and the next day I received an email back with a tracking number! On Saturday, my new Hot Air Rework Station arrived and then about 2 hours later I received an Amazon notification that my Hot Air Rework Station was being shipped to me and they provided the tracking number (Better late than never Amazon 😂!). Much like the previous time, I ripped the package open, got everything connected and fired her off again! I had to test this baby out, so I grabbed a circuit board I had been meaning to rob some parts from before sending it to Valhalla and this sweet little hot air gun was removing SMD LED's, Capacitors, antenna connectors, you name it like it was on a mission! Next step was to try doing some SMD soldering! FYI, this was my first attempt at SMD soldering period! I watched a couple YouTube videos and got prepared. I am in the process of building some MSFS 2020 Flight Simulator accessories to enrich my enjoyment of flying in MSFS 2020 (It's two Garmin G1000 10.4" PFD's along with a 15.4" MFD as well as a GCU475 and a couple of Audio Panels, for anyone interested....Check out FlightSimMaker on the interwebs). I prepared my circuit board by swabbing the pads with isopropyl alcohol, then applied a low temp lead free solder paste to each pad. I used the included right angle tweezers to place my 5070 LED's on the pads and heated the gun up to about 30℃ higher than the package of solder claimed was the melting point (137℃) and started waving the hot air wand around the LED. The paste started to melt, but that was about it. I tried a couple more and same thing, so I started cranking up the temperature. I ended up getting great results at about the 280℃ temperature, so I don't know if the solder datasheet is off or if the hot air gun temp is off (I didn't measure it with a thermocouple yet) so YMMV! All in all, this went EXTREMELY WELL (see attached photos) and I cannot say enough good things about this device. Is it meant for every day use, day in, day out, all day long? Probably not at this price point, but I am just a hobbyist, so not really a concern for me! At the end of the day, I received an excellent product at an incredible price and though I had some troubles, the manufacturer came through in spades with Outstanding Customer Service, which in the day and age is sorely lacking. If you are considering this purchase, please don't hesitate to pull the trigger! I did and I have ZERO regrets!

Review Part 1. Unit was received in good order. The package was clearly marked for 110V. I confirmed the PC style plug in power cord is wired correctly for US 110V AC and that the case was well grounded. Fan vents were well formed and clear of any obstruction. A useful readable manual with specs included. Also include, a spare replacement heating unit, a plus. First power up was normal. Tested heat and blower on a printed circuit board and initially seemed OK. Confirmed SMD and through hole components desoldering worked as expected, but after a few minutes, the fan speed control stopped working and the fan was stuck "on" all the time. The Vendor Newacalox was responsive on the same day by email, immediately acknowledged a problem, and offered to resolve with seller (Amazon). Resolution: The unit was out of stock. Amazon refunded my cost and via the RMA authorization I sent the defective unit back to Amazon. Review Part 2. Despite refunding my money and RMA return, Newacalox/maixi contacted me through their Amazon support email and to my surprise, offered to send me a NEW UNIT to re-evaluate at their expense. A few days later, it is now on my bench. After a number of separate test trials through the day, this unit does what I got it for: allow removing and reworking SMD parts and also reworking hot glue bonds. As far as the initial fan problem is concerned, the fan speed control performs as designed and has survived the initial burn in trial on my workbench. Fan blower speed is set by the dial control. Heater and fan power when the heat gun wand is lifted from the cradle. When the wand is replaced on the cradle, the fan stays on at the preset level, the heating unit powers off. The fan stays on while the temperature drops to 100C - the display shows "---" at this point indicating the start of the last phase of the standby process. From this point, the fan stays on a bit longer which facilitates further cooling below 100C then the fan turns off, completing the standby process. In the standby state, fan off, the display shows "---". In summary, the tool works as designed and does what I got for. I am glad to have it. Newacalox, maixi the storefront, and Ivy who worked with me, demonstrated they mean business when it comes to delivering a good product and customer satisfaction; very cool and the reason for a part 2 to this review.

Even though I used this station to successfully solder a bunch of SMD components over the past several days, I only just now measured the temperature accuracy with a thermocouple. Turns out the hot air station's temp display is fairly inaccurate--when set to 275, my meter measured only 230-235 immediately next to the nozzle. It was consistent, though, so just be aware that if precise temperature matters, probably get an external measuring device (assuming "turn the temperature up until your solder melts" isn't good enough for your use). Other criticisms: the case is not grounded, but you could fix that yourself if you wanted. The Hall sensor which turns the heater off when the hand unit is placed in the holder is kinda finicky and you may need to rotate it a bit before it actually triggers properly. The handle holder is fairly flimsy and it doesn't take too much downward force to bend it out of square (of course it bends back just as easily so that's not a huge deal). Also it seems like when heating up or cooling down, the temperature briefly fluctuates wildly. Not sure if that's a sensor issue or a heating element issue, just be aware you need to give it a few seconds to stabilize. Otherwise though, I'm quite satisfied. If I had to choose whether to purchase it again, I would. It works just fine for some occasional SMD work/reflow soldering, and it's hard to beat the price. I went with this model specifically (of the many, many 858D clones) because the hand unit was removable, which is a nice feature that does not seem to be as common.

We've moved from through-hole assembly into the SMT assembly world. This heat gun (pencil) is great for soldering SMT part (using solder paste). We now use two of these is our company for assembly as well as re-work of surface-mount parts. It has been very effective - and we also use this for heat shrink tubing. The heat control is good and the air velocity is exceptional. (It works for BGA removal/rework as well as down to 01005 size surface mount resistors!) I highly recommended this for anyone planning on doing SMT assembly or just needing a controllable heat source.

There are many YouTube videos about these rework stations. They are generically known as "858D" because there are many versions and brands (or unbranded ones) but they mostly have the 858D model number on them. Many videos describe certain safety issues with these stations, including having the neutral wire instead of the hot wire going through the (in many units separate) fuse holder, not having the ground connection go to the metal parts of the handle/nozzle, etc. Because of these reports, I opened the Newacalox version I received and checked it out. In contrast to some of the versions shown on YouTube, this one has a separate power cable that plugs into a standard IEC connector with an integrated fuse holder on the back of the unit. It therefore seems difficult to have that wired wrong. A ground wire goes from the IEC connector to a port on the (plastic) back of the unit (presumably so one can ground it to an external ground) and also to the leg of the transformer on the (metal) bottom. The (metal) sides and top are screwed to the bottom, so should make reasonably good contact. The front of the unit is plastic, so does not need ground. The hot air handle attaches to the unit using a multi-pin connector on the plastic front, and is not itself grounded (I don't think it connects to anything). There is, however, a ground pin inside the connector (bottom-most pin) which does connect to the ground at the foot of the transformer. I opened the handle, and the ground wire attaches to the outside metal part of the heater assembly. I further checked the location of the reed switch which turns the heater off when the handle is put in its cradle. In some videos, that reed switch was loose in the handle, but here it was located in a dedicated pocket and its wire secured using hot glue. The circuit board inside the unit looks much more modern than the ones I saw in the various videos. I then turned the unit on, and it seems to be working as advertised. So overall, I can't think of a reason why I should give the Newacalox unit less than 5 stars.

For the price, this is a very great product. I took a controller board from a large screen TV put in the oven at 500° to preheat it and reflowed the main IC using this solder station.. it fixed the tv.. but I do know what I’m doing. I would highly recommend using a liquid flux to help things flow easier

I don't do a lot of reflow work, maybe once a month or so. This unit was purchased with that in mind. I needed an inexpensive rework station for occasional hobbyist use. This includes reflow work, heat shrink use, and loosening adhesives on some electronics. I have another hot air gun/solder station combo but it's bulky and the iron doesn't heat quickly. Setup was easy and included attaching the holder to the power unit. The screw holes were a bit tight, and needed a fair amount of effort to attach. I thought that I had misthreaded at first, but the holes were just really tight. No issues with usage. It heated up quickly enough and I was able to reflow a couple SMD caps. I do miss having a disengage switch in the holder as my other hot air gun has. Other than that, no other concerns. It does the job and was inexpensive. If you are a professional, this probably won't serve but it meets my needs perfectly.

I've come into a situation where I have several GPUs that have failed in one way or another, and my old Wagner heatgun didn't offer enough accuracy to attempt a reflow with. So it came down to, do I buy a higher end heat gun, or do I get a reflow station which I may be able to use for other electronic repairs? I opted for the reflow station, since over the years that has been the vast majority of the work I've used my heat gun for. Flash forward and I start using it for the first time. First of all, I'll say that the quality was pretty impressive for $58. Came with some extras, everything feels solid, and the controls are really easy to use. The auto shutoff works perfectly and everything heats up quickly. However, for this task, it was not enough airflow or heat produced to accomplish the task. I was attempting to target a temperature of 230C, around the point that lead-free solder begins to melt. I had the wand pointed less than 1/2 in off the GPU die for close to an hour and couldn't get it above 90C. In terms of reheating the VRAM, I was a little more successful there, getting it to roughly 140C. In terms of preheating the PCB, I've seen recommendations of anywhere between 85C and 120C, and I could just barely get it to 80C after roughly 30 minutes of continuous application directly to the PCB. Overall, I am a bit disappointed with the purchase, but I think that's mainly on me. Based on the temperature range it offers, I thought this would be a no brainer for this type of work. Maybe I just received a defective unit? I can tell you the air coming out is indeed very hot, but maybe the boards I'm trying to work with are just too big for such a small unit. I don't plan on returning the device, as I think I'll use it more in the future, but for the main task that I bought it for, it was not enough. I'll be giving it a few more tries and will update my review if my opinion changes.

Fast delivery! Great quality plus tools!!! Thank you!

The overall appearance of this tool is reasonable. The outside case is ergonomically designed to be picked up with one hand. The electrical wires are lower quality and stiff. Not a problem for the main power line but the stiff wire to the blow gun makes it not lay in the holder well so the magnetic switches don't always shut the gun off. The mag shut off switch is a great idea but the stiff wire makes them unreliable. The nozzles on the end of the gun are too easy to knock off, an indication of lower quality manufacturing standards. The temperature scale isn't even close to accurate (off by 30 degrees measured with a temp probe inserted into the end of the nozzle), but I wasn't expecting commercial grade. The instructions that came with it are unusable. My reason for returning it was what I found when I was searching inside it for the "shipping screw" that the instructions said to be removed before use. I found the wires carrying the mains power to the transformer were 22 gauge. I am sure CSA would not approve 22 gauge wiring with 700 watts and 110 volts. There are several almost identical hot air rework station's for sale on Amazon at 1/2 the price of this unit. I was betting that if I paid more the unit would be higher quality. I was wrong so I returned it. The vendor was responsive to my emails during the return process but very confusing. Might be a language barrier but it felt like the replies to my questions were more AI generated than human generated. The return process was not easy. I am giving it 2 stars because of the responsiveness of the seller but this unit probably should not be sold in any country that used 110 volt mains power.