957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

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brentbolton
 
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957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by brentbolton »

The tool holder on my Quick 957DW+ is made of a poorly chosen plastic that melts when the hot air nozzle is placed in it. It eventually got so deformed that I removed it and just sat the nozzle on my bench. That turned out to be a bad idea -- I burned my thumb on the exposed metal reaching for the tool. Is there a replacement holder available that doesn't melt? If not, I'm ready to chuck this in the trash, even though otherwise it works quite well. Safety first.

Brent

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by Franklin97355 »

Hi Brent, can you post a picture of the melted part? I have used another hot air gun and have learned that, if you use a high temperature and low airflow the gun can't get rid of the heat and gets too hot(Smoking!). Make sure you have enough airflow to remove some of the heat.

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brentbolton
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by brentbolton »

Hi Franklin,

Thank you for your quick reply. You are probably correct. But, that said, the primary use case for me is low airflow, high temperature. I use the tool to solder DFN1010-3, 0201's, and other tiny parts. In such an application, the only temperature sensor that matters is the solder paste itself. I have to set the tool to a temperature high enough to melt the solder using the smallest nozzle and lowest airflow. Often that's over 300 C. Any higher airflow pushes the ultralight parts out of place.

As for the tool, good design means designing for worst case. Clearly that wasn't done.
tool holder.JPG
tool holder.JPG (263.31 KiB) Viewed 2372 times

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by Franklin97355 »

I have found that if I use a small port and low flow I need to lower the temperature way down. You might test it with low temperature to see what the lowest temperature you can get by with to flow solder (and maybe use leaded solder to lower the melting point)

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brentbolton
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by brentbolton »

Thanks Franklin, but I've done all that. I use leaded solder and I lower the temperature as much as will still allow reflow. About the only other thing I could do would be to switch to a bismuth based solder.

I think the issue is that the air is losing a lot of heat going through the long, thin nozzle tip. But I can't use a larger tip because for hand assembly I'm reflowing one part at a time.

I do this professionally so tool cost is less of an issue. Does Adafruit have any other hot air stations that can stand up to high heat, low flow use -- including their tool holder?

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by Franklin97355 »

Take a look at the pictures in the product page. Are you sure you are mounting the nozzle correctly? The holder should not be in contact with the metal.

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adafruit2
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by adafruit2 »

yeah something was used oddly here, if you want a higher quality hot air station, we personally use
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3941
daily and its really awesome plus it auto-turns-off when put into the holder

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brentbolton
 
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Re: 957DW+ Hot Air station nozzle holder melts

Post by brentbolton »

Thanks for your help everyone. Turns out the nozzle holder can be mounted and work in at least two ways. The way I had it mounted did allow the metal of the nozzle to contact the holder. It's been a while since I purchased the unit, so I don't recall if the assembly instructions were clear on that.

I'll order a new holder, and also look into Adafruit's higher quality stations. My original purchase was intended for casual use removing parts from pcbs. But, I've discovered so many more uses for it now and would likely be better off with a higher end tool.

Thanks Again,
Brent

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