Hakko FR-301 - Desoldering Tool with 633-01 Stand and Four Extra Nozzles (N61-04, 05, 09 and 10)

I've been doing quite a bit of board repairs and decided to make my life a little easier with a good de-soldering pump. Honestly, I wish I would have done this years ago. This thing is amazing. What used to take me about an hour to desolder an entire keyboard has not taken me less than 10 minutes. The only thing about this unit, if you don't keep the components clean, be ready to replace parts. Cleaning after every use is essential to keeping the cost down.

This makes desoldering capacitors and other components a breeze..Love it!!

Excellent desoldering tool. Right out of the box, I was able to desolder a 28 pin DIP IC from a multilayer pcb. With the last pin desoldered, the IC literally fell out, leaving behind perfectly clean thru-holes on the pcb and perfectly clean pins on the IC. This tool (FR301) is a tremendous improvement over the FR300 which it replaces. FR300's are still available, but I don't recommend them. Get the FR301.

This is a life saver. Before getting this desoldering gun I had been using a manual pump and braid to desolder. While I’ve gotten pretty good with those tools, they still took time to fully clear plated through holes, especially if they were on a ground plane. This is a total game changer. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a tool as quickly as I did with this. I’m now able to remove a whole board’s worth of parts in the time it used to take for two potentiometers with grounded mounting tabs.If you do repair work, or scavenge for parts, this is a must have. While it is a bit of an investment for a hobbyist, it has already more than paid for itself in the time and hassle it has saved me.

Desoldering is so easy now. I have already used this tool more than I thought I would and wonder how I got along without it before. Works like a champ.