Buy Hakko Desoldering Kit, With 808 Gun, 120 VACHakko Desoldering Kit, With 808 Gun, 120 VAC Product Description:
- Handy, portable desoldering tool with a built-in vacuum pump
- No separate station is required
- Unique design places the pump and motor above the grip
- Delicate tasks are performed with greater ease
- Tool can be used for long periods without operator fatigue
Product Description
Hakko 808 Desoldering Gun - The Hakko 808 Kit is a handy, portable desoldering tool with a built-in vacuum pump. No separate station is required. The unique design places the pump and motor above the grip. Delicate tasks are performed with greater ease; the tool can be used for long periods without operator fatigue. Pump maintenance is quick and easy - simply remove the cover. Adjustable temperature control (380-480°C/715-895°F). Kit includes: desoldering tool, solder tip, solder sock and case.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
48 of 48 people found the following review helpful.
A solid and dependable tool
By James R. Axelrad
I use one of these at work. in the past i have used several different types and brands of solder suckers. all of the previous types i have used have not been self contained like the 808.the gun i use on my bench is routinely left turned on and used through 2 shifts. upwards of 16-20 hours. they have been in use now for roughly a year now since the first batch was purchased.first impressions, i was skeptical. the 808 is much larger than the handset of other types, heavier too. but virtually everything in the unit is some form of plastic except the motor and crank shaft (which was well lubricated at the factory), so its a lot lighter than you would expect, and can easily be held through large batches of solder sucking. also, the designers were careful to balance the gun at the handle, i have no problems using it sideways, vertical, horizontal for as long as necessary. its easily held and supported in any position you could need.with proper care, the fact that the majority of the gun is plastic should be of little concern. the only issue causing the guns to break (other than mishandling) is over tightening the nut holding the tips in place on the front of the gun. as long as you are aware that the components on the front of the gun change size slightly between off/cold and on/hot. if you put the tip on cold, you need to remember when you tighten it that that things will expand a bit, and if you tighten it much beyond finger tight, once hot, it will be difficult to remove the tip even with a wrench, and the stresses on the front of the gun where the heating element is attached into is enormous. if that area fails, the gun becomes a good source of spare parts.compared to other suckers, the pump on the 808 is VERY strong. it rarely jams due to poor suction allowing solder to collect in the heating element tube. compared to the units with separate pumping stations, the 808 is quite a bit louder, but not terribly so. part of that is coming form the fact that the motor is now frequently next to your face instead of the back of your bench, and as long as the rear cover is in place, it acts a a bit of a muffler to keep things down to a moderate roar.the storage cylinder is a snap to empty. you depress a spring-loaded portion on the gun (towards the rear of the gun), and it pops out. the paper filter is actually mounted in the gun itself behind the filter cartridge, so you simply knock the filter properly, or use some long needle nosed pliers, and its empty. pop it back in and your ready to continue. there is a metal baffle plate at the base of the filter cartridge though, and its held in place using a rubber piece. be warned, if you actually need to disassemble the filter cartridge, which is pulling the rubber piece off to allow access at the metal baffle, its a bit of a pain reassembling that section properly. i will admit that the clear plastic of the cartridge is a nice idea, but it clouds with dust and is impossible to see through after about 2 full cartridges worth of use. making it clear again is a lengthy process. not being able to see inside will not affect operation of the gun though.changing tips is uneventful. it uses the same design found on a lot of other types of solder suckers and irons, and the tips are common to other hakko suckers. i routinely use either a small adjustable crescent wrench, or a stamped metal wrench designed for hakko suckers. be advised, the entire front of the gun from about just in front of the front of the filter cartridge is far too hot to touch. this includes the plastic sections between the cartridge and the heating element.using these guns, there has been only one item that has come up in their use. unlike solder suckers that have a handset and a base unit, the 808 only has 1 filter in it. its VERY important that that filter is installed properly. if it isn't, there is no second filter to protect the pump. the pump section has proven to have little tolerance for any dust/particles getting past the filter. also, the pump HATES flux, which the filter is very effective at stopping. the plus side of this is that the pump section is easily serviced using a screw driver. the rear section of the gun is a plastic cover held on by a single thumbscrew. make sure you unplug it of course, without the cover, there is nothing protecting you from the crank that drives the pump, and the trigger is easily bumped during service. the pump is a pair of reed/flapper valve pumps, of which are held on by a pair of screws each. remove those 4 screws, and the reed/flapper valves can be removed and cleaned, same for the valve chambers. with practice, it takes roughly 10-15 minutes max, a screwdriver (#2), and isopropyl alcohol and your back in business. however, if you need to actually unhook the hoses in the pump section, you are not going to be having fun.throughout use, the 808 has a strong suction. frankly, its a much stronger suck than i have found on other suckers i have used, though that could be a maintenance issue for the others.in use, my job has me routinely replacing large numbers of radial capacitors on circuit boards. this gun literally is left on all day long, and i can routinely go through 200-300 replacement capacitors in an 8hr period. the gun does not overheat, and remains cool to the touch at the handle. the only thing you need to be careful with on heat is if you suddenly need to empty the filter after you have been actively using the gun. the cartridge can be rather hot to handle, but still not much more than uncomfortably warm to the touch. there is no exposed metal on the cartridge, and a good hard knock is all you need most of the time to empty it. and my long needle nosed pliers handles that occasional instance.the heating element on this gun is like other hakko suckers, very strong. i generally use either a 1.3 or a 1.6mm tip as a compromise to the different types of parts i work on, but this thing has little trouble, with practice of course, going from removing caps on a circuit board, straight to changing the connectors on a power-supply, to being used to re-float the board connections on a heat-sink and then back to removing board caps. if anything, you need to keep an eye on how much heat your allowing to get into your work. i have been able to use it on large metal sections such as RF shields and heat-sinks with little trouble. if you are used to solder suckers, especially if you have used hakko's before, this thing is extremely familiar and easy to use. if you haven't used a sucker before, you'll need to get used to the leap in performance. no matter what though, you will need to get used to the greater performance of the pump.there is a temperature control on the handle, along with a calibration setting, but its only vaguely labeled and frankly, i have never moved it from the setting it came with. if you require extremely accurate known temperature settings, you will need a separate device to read the temperature output. i cannot speak to the range it will hold temp at, but i have experienced absolutely no problems with its ability to maintain temperature.one thing to note, if you use this gun like i do, expect to go through filters. with two shifts using it, filters can be unusable in as little as 3-4 days. but, this gun seems to be better at using its filters than other types i have used. they seem to last a bit longer than i was used to on other types of suckers.there is one thing on it i would sorta consider a flaw. the power cable for the gun is extremely short. if you don't have an outlet at the edge of your immediate work area, you will need to get one (maybe on the underside of the front of your bench like me), or an extension cord you can live with. its ridiculously short, being only marginally longer than the cable/hose found on the more traditional suckers with a separate pumping unit.i would also like to note, there is no power switch or power light on it. care should be taken to ensure its unplugged when not in use.in conclusion, this is a solid, dependable tool that makes short work of removing solder in almost every situation i have ever encountered. while it probably has a lot more capacity than i would think the hobbyist would need, its the perfect compliment to any technicians bench. and, since its self contained, is probably usable away from the bench as well. you will however need a good holder for the 808 for your bench. the hakko holder designed for it is effective, though i have found it to be a bit under-engineered. the holder does have the benefit of being inexpensive. i currently used a holder for for a different brand of soldering IRON that i adapted to hold the 808 between uses. i have never had the sock it comes with, so i have no opinion on it.01JUN11I stand by what i said about this tool!I have now been using them long enough to actually see some of them wear out from routine use (it normally takes a couple of years). the end of the heating element on some has worn away and degraded to the point where it no longer maintains heats reliably. no problem. the heating tube is a replaceable part. also replaceable are the solder collection tubes, the metal tube that holds the solder tip, and the 'nut' that is tightened to hold the tip in place.*NOTE - the major point of failure has been overtightening the nut that hols the tip in place. you can overtighten it fine, but when you go to remove it, watch out either the heating element or the forward part of the tool may fail. it is also strongly recommended you use some form of wrench for the nut, and not a pair of pliers. the plastic tool included with the tool is great for the process, but not for the initial loosening or final tightening of the nut, the whole assembly has a tendency to twist and get jammed inside the tool. a small adjustable crescent wrench is perfect.Other than the guns being dropped, this solder sucker, with proper maintenance, has held up to years of 18 hour days. even when dropped, a lot of the time, repairs can still be made. the motor cover is easily broken, but is easily repaired with some form of glue or even tape.i have found that the pump itself is easily serviced with a screwdriver, a brush, and alcohol, though this is mainly needed only when the filter wasn't installed correctly or failed, allowing contamination of the pump. the motor itself i have never needed to do anything significant other than a bit of cleaning.
25 of 25 people found the following review helpful.Best in Class!
By R. Amano
I have used tons of solder suckers, and for the past 15 years, a Pace MBT-200 soldering/desoldering station. The Pace worked for a lot of years but always needed a lot of maintenance. It was ok but I always had a feeling there must be something better. It was what my boss bought so I was grateful just to have one. I've been having a hard time finding tips lately, so I decided to look for a station for myself. After reading a ton of reviews I bought this Hakko 808 and I got to say, i must've been living in a closet. This thing is absolutely the best. I have it on the temp setting from the factory which is kinda midway and with the tip that it came with and it cleaned up all the mess of a board that the pace couldn't handle. nice clean holes. I guess there could be better, but this is best in class for me. a bonus is, it's portable. I would definitely take it out in the field. It is kinda expensive [...] just for a desolderer. but, i just did 10 holes in one pass in like 30 seconds. definitely a lifestyle changer, a stress reliever. nah, but i really do enjoy using it. i hate to say it sucks, but it sucks good! if you're like i was and can't make up your mind btwn the cheap one at that other site and the Hakko 808 at amazon. don't eat lunch for a month and buy the Hakko!!it's been over a year now, and it still works great!it's been 2 years now and I have to put this in the "one of the best products" list
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful.Better than sliced bread
By James
I've tried just about all the low cost solder removal methods over the years. Vacuum bulbs and spring loaded plungers that I found to be largely worthless, radio shack desoldering iron with a built in suction bulb was what I used for years, worked ok as long as I kept a fresh tip on it. Desoldering braid was nice for cleaning up solder the sucker wouldn't get, but even after dipping in liquid flux, that left much to be desired.I finally bit the bullet and bought a Hakko 808 and it has completely transformed the art of desoldering. 40 pin DIPs on double sided PCBs that used to be a nightmare can now be removed on a whim with little risk of damaging the board. Desoldering has become so trivially easy that I've even spent some time harvesting usable parts from scrapped PCBs like I used to do as a kid except now it's a lot more fun. This thing warms up quickly and puts out a lot of heat, has powerful suction, is easy to maintain, and slurps the solder into a chamber that can be emptied like a miniature bagless vacuum cleaner, no more spitting molten solder into an old Altoids tin. The tool itself is made in Japan and feels well made with good fit & finish. It fits comfortably in my hand and the pump is fairly quiet.I bought an additional larger tip based on a review here but so far have not found it necessary to use. I'm sure it will come in handy sooner or later, but the included tip has been adequate for all the IC's, transistors, passives, and other stuff I've needed to desolder. I purchased the optional metal stand which is a nice accessory, but the kit does come with a ceramic wool tip cover that can be placed on it to prevent burning things/you when set on the bench. The stand doesn't fit in the included carry case so if you plan to use it mostly in the field, you may not need a stand.The only con I've encountered is the price. Yeah, pushing up on $200 it's a lot more expensive than the $10 Radio Shack tool, but it works *SO* much better that it is WELL worth it, and while it stung a little when I clicked Buy, I now have no regrets about my purchase. Just goes to show, buy good tools and only cry once.Update: Several years down the road my 808 is still going strong and is one of my favorite tools. I find that it's important to remove the tip and thoroughly clean the barrel fairly frequently with the included screwdriver-looking tool, especially if it sucks up some flux. The tip cleaning wire it came with is frequently inadequate for clearing out the small tip and I have resorted to using a tiny drill bit to clear out tip clogs. Consumables are a bit spendy too, but the filters can get pretty dirty before causing enough restriction to become a problem.
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