Everything Else

For reference only ... price in rmb/6.4 = ~ price in $ USD You can adjust the results by adding "hakko" or "weller" in English to the search bar.

Wound up going with the Hakko 888. Not too big, fast warm-up, enough power to do most anything (60-some watts), ESD safe.

It doesn't do BGAs very well.

FWIW I also went with the Hakko F-888D. Now to bring my level of skill up to the quality of the tool...

a lot of discussions online these days about JBC stations, they have very impressive heat recovery, sucking something like 140-170 watts when cold started, and reaching 400 C within a couple of seconds. that's ten times faster than my Hakko 939.

Weller also has some amazing (German-made) products these days, like the WHS-M and WD1000-M, with very fast thermal performance.

Mine is a Weller WESD51; hardly top-of-the-line but a very solid performer nonetheless...

Is there an all in one desoldering station with vacuum tip for through hole components and hot air for SMD ? My first job would be to recap two HP t5540 thin clients with bad network, and possibly resolder or replace VT6130 chips.

I think there is, but you're talking very high-end.

PACE, JBC, Weller, and Ersa make such stations, and as SAQ said, they are expensive. There are Chinese knock-offs from Aoyue that cost much less.
Quality control can be an issue for Chinese tools, but there are some that do carry warranties and support, like the CSI labeled ones.
http://www.circuitspecialists.com/bk6000.html

They all come from China, Robes. Even the ones who claim to be made domestically are lying.

Now that everything is owned by investors and job creators it's all about the money. Unless Changsha is now part of the US, I can name several Made in USA products that seem to have taken a slight detour. And the FTC does nothing.

Edit: A little investigation shows that Weller is owned by Bain Capital and it's all made in China. Unless you feel like contributing to the car elevators in Mitt's mansions and his offshore bank accounts, may as well buy direct from Taobao and save 80%.

Weller ? ESAD. And the horse you rode in on.

My my, aren't we an exceptional bunch of curmudgeons this morning. Go to radio shack and buy a soldering iron already. It's not that hard.

If there isn't a yogi berra quote about not worrying about where something came from and instead about where it's going, there should be.

works for me! Besides, I like Chinese people.

Shoddy and counterfeit goods aren't a joke, they are dangerous to your health and safety.
Chinese-designed electronics are the latest in a string of tragedies caused by feckless oversight and corrupt bureaucracies. Or I suppose you could ask the people most affected, the parents in China who will risk jail to acquire baby formula that was made somewhere else.

A basic weller wes51 from radioshack isn't counterfeit or shoddy, regardless of where it came from. I would not say mine is from china or the us or mexico, it doesn't say anywhere on the unit where it was made.

Said baby formula is not counterfeit, it is manufactured by who the package says. Nobody really makes anything anymore, it's all contracted and sub-contacted and bought and sold and traded.

I've had a couple interesting summer jobs while studying in the USA including working at an electronics *manufacturer* (where I learned that there is no great premium in quality for something made locally, it is rather easy to make crap products in the US) and a sporting goods distribution/customization facility for a small (7 stores in 3 states) retail chain (where you learn that the logo on the product is different from the distributor on the box who probably has no idea who actually manufactures said product).

heats up? check. no electrocution or melting or fire or other shenanigans? check. fine by me.

Are you referring to Thalidomide ? MTBE ? Fracking ? PG&E getting permission to raise rates to replace pipelines, except they diverted all the money into payoffs for their executives and stock holders, exploding an entire neighborhood and killing dozens ? Jonestown Kool-Aid ? Pipes in Richmond refinery that fail because of cheapass maintenance, causing fires that spread noxious poisonous chemicals over entire neighborhoods ? AGENT ORANGE ? Toxic commodities ? The entire world financial meltdown ? DEPLETED URANIUM ? Would you like me to go back through the shitty unsafe product scenario in the US with just the stuff I remember off the top of my head ?

Not yelling at you, Robes, but pot -> kettle, you know ? This is what is extremely annoying about Americans - they are the first to point fingers but honey chile, youse gots da dirtiest hands in the room. You need to get away from that kowtowing self-justifying corporate press.


We certainly see different things here

"A doctor who attended Ma following her death said afterwards that her neck had obvious signs of electrical injury."

Uh, yeah. Anyone know the meaning of the word "autopsy" ? Why would a doctor be "attending" anyone after their death ? Especially here, where the doctors don't even attend people who are alive unless they sit in line for an hour at the hospital ? And what was this doctor's name, exactly ? Who was that guy who wrote the stunning expose of Foxconn factories ? the ones he never visited ?

I call bool sheet.

"the 23-year-old air hostess with South China Airlines who died just weeks before her planned wedding."

Of course ! Pretty young stewardess, just weeks before her wedding ! oh noes ! What is the world coming to ! The victim couldn't be an elderly grandpa with gout and halitosis, has to be a pretty girl about to get laid !

Who buys Apple products and to whom are we appealing with this unattributed, undocumented shit ?

"Apple has previously released a statement on its Chinese website, warning customers of the danger of using unofficial chargers."

Mmm, couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that Apple chargers cost about ten times as much as the knockoffs ? Even though they come from exactly the same places ?

"Anyone worried their USB charger may be a counterfeit can take it into an Apple store and have it replaced by one made by the company for $10, or the equivalent in local currency."

Since Apple doesn't make anything and they don't supervise anything and it's all made by Foxconn or outside suppliers and you can buy those all day long for $2 each retail, Apple will be making a pretty penny on this humanitarian gesture. Side note : I was overjoyed to pay $70 for a cheap aftermarket charger for a Macbook in the US (lost one, oops ) Nice work, if you can get it. What a ducking ripoff. No wonder no one sensible buys "real" Apple chargers.


Oh Joseph, Mary, and the Baby Jesus ... I'm going to skip the baby food story, it's yet another dumbass western crusade based on nonsense and would make the post too long but you can't seriously believe this swill, Robes ? "Feckless oversight" ? that's why Europe has dozens of deaths from German-raised bean sprouts, dozens of people die in food poisoning incidents in the US, people get killed eating at Jack in the Box, DC-10's turn turtle killing hundreds, trains of oil tankers decide to head east on their own, setting fire to entire towns, etc etc ?

It's sounds flippant but even with the best intentions shit happens . When you have seven billion people in the world, more shit happens. Chinese "oversight" is no worse than American oversight. And I've had friends who worked for the FDA inspecting chicken farms and others who have worked in the stock yards. Wack in the head with a hammer to kill a steer. Gary lasted one and a half days before he decided learning to play guitar was a better idea You don't want to know about the food industry.

I'd be the last person to say Chinese food is anywhere near "safe". Blowing it out both ends simultaneously is not a pleasant experience (usually after eating at KFC, I wonder what that means ?) But the US is not one bit better in the oversight department. The major difference is that the bottom level of US society still has a sense of honor. That's disappearing fast, so you ain't gonna be any better off than we are with the river pigs and cut-rate flu chickens in another twenty years. Hey, we can make two bucks more selling diseased animals ! Delta thinks that's "good business" so why shouldn't we ? the money is what counts, babe ! Right ?

Better make that ten years.

Now, shall we talk about corruption ?

Sure, China has corruption. We pay "commissions" to make sales, pay hong bao to get better service (and that is different from tipping exactly how ?), people who have access to large sums of money siphon some off. Everyone here knows it and thinks it's okay. They think it's okay because they are not silly - they know if they were in that position or ever had that chance they'd do exactly the same thing. This is why over here the Bo Xilai story is entertaining. Bo was stealing all he could, the Brit was laundering it for the Bo family. Then the Brit got greedy and doubled the price. Bo said, "okay, I've already got plenty, we'll just quit." Mr Brit didn't take that well, tried extortion. He was going to fink Bo out, so Mrs Bo poisoned him. Ship the body back to England and get rid of the lousy extortionist jerk.

Alas, they should have got the doctor who attended Miss Ma Someone in England did an autopsy. Maybe Apple should try that, Ma xiaojie was perhaps poisoned as well So now Bo is in hot water and all of China thinks it's funny. It's only the western press who is enthralled with the "unusually open" proceedings and the "expose of the Chinese elite in the Communist ruling class." What a bunch of shit. The only people I have ever heard saying stupid crap like that are foreigners.

Okay, I take that back. I've seen foreigners with no experience come here to run projects. Most factory people are lazy and most people don't like being given orders by some outsider. They very quickly pick up to the fact that they can get out of anything by saying "the Communist Party won't allow it." Had a friend who was supposed to be running a joint venture to make bearings. I heard more "Communist Party" stories out of him in six months than I'd heard elsewhere in twenty years. Funny how each one meant that someone didn't have to do something they didn't want to Plus he refused to listen to me about fraternizing with the maid, ended up with her hanging off his legs in the office screaming and crying about how he promised to marry her and take her back to the US (but okay, if you're not going to do that then how about 10,000 rmb cash money right now and I'll go away ?) She was oogly, too. What a dumbass thing to do but hey now, Americans always know what's best, don't be silly, nothing bad could ever happen !

They were sure he was boinking the ugly old hag, too. Stupid move on his part, destroyed his position in the company entirely. But why would anyone who lived here for twenty years know anything ? No MBA, you ain't shit. A Manager can manage anything ! Managers know best !

Americans are so goddamned naive, it's hilarious. And righteous about it, too. That makes it even funnier whan all hell breaks loose and they have to call the cavalry

What's different is, our corruption is on a human scale. One guy here, one guy there, a thousand bucks here, five hundred there. No one likes being squeezed but a $500 penalty by the Commodities Bureau for a report that they conveniently never bothered to tell you you had to submit just pisses you off. It doesn't ruin your life. The Chinese saying which has to make you laugh and cry all at once is, "Yes, it's your money. But it's in his pocket."

Now let's talk about the virtuous US ...

25% of the homes in the US under water. Seriously under water, like $50,000 - $100,000 more than they are worth. This is institutionalized fraud for which no one has been prosecuted or gone to jail. In fact, the biggest players get rewarded with positions such as secretary of the treasury. After the previous banking fiasco and dress rehearsal in 1978, dozens if not hundreds of bankers went to jail. Not Mr McCain of course (Keating Five) but still, a lot. Now, nothing.

Of course, if you are a really successful job creator and investor and single-handedly destroy hundreds of thousands of careers and middle class lives, then you can run for president ! Is this a cool country or what ?

Creative destruction, d00d ! Creative when it's your life anyhow. When it's the life of an important person then we best get the treasury to print up a bunch of money to save their asses. Capitalism is messy when it's little people getting screwed. But we need better planning when it's someone important.

The people who pulled the milk scam in China are dead. Executed. Do you guys have any plans for Tim Geithner or Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon ? Or do you just intend to keep licking their boots ? A clean boot is a happy boot, they say ...

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman thinks inflation is fine. Hey, how else can you get out from under actually paying for the fucking wars you started based entirely on lies ? So now everything I saved by working for forty years is worth 30% less than it was three years ago. Quantitative easing, eh ? Assignats, anyone ? Worked so good for the French. Not just me, by the way. Everyone. Hey, what better way to drive all the loose cash into the worthless fraud you call a stock market ? "Wealth creators" ? You mean the phony numbers that aren't worth even ten Weimar dollars ? When a rumour that Apple's new interface will be blue-tinged instead of red can cause the so-called value of the company to vary by ten million dollars, do you seriously want to argue that this is actually "value" ?

Freedom ? democracy ? All that other worthless crap that the US shoves down the throats of every country in the world at gunpoint ? And yes, it's definitely worthless crap because it is nothing but a lie. Anyone with an IQ over twelve can look at the US and see that lie. Anyone who doesn't live there, swimming in the corporate sewage that your press pimps out by the riverload, anyhow.

I don't think you want to talk about corruption, Robes. Yeah, China has corruption - but nothing compared to the self-righteous institutionalized hypocrisy that the US calls "the rule of law."

It's about time you guys faced the facts ......