New Portable Rework Station: Yihua 8858-I

Joshua R. T. Purba
Electronics

I just got a new portable hot-air rework station: Yihua 8858-I. Oh yeah! Finally I can desolder things more easily compared to with a regular soldering iron.

Box of Yihua 8858-I.

Box of Yihua 8858-I.

The hot-air rework station itself, with three provided nozzles.

The hot-air rework station itself, with three provided nozzles.

I was looking around for a small hot-air station after my bad experience of soldering SMD components using a soldering iron. Now that I have this, I do not think it would help 😭 because the board I was using was a perfboard.

Anyway I tried desoldering components from a junk board I have, and the result is so far so good. I managed to desolder tantalum SMD capacitors, SMD resistors, SMD LEDs, SMD inductors, TO-220 regulators, a TH common-mode choke, a TH barrel jack socket, and a TH inductor with plastic cover.

The junk board and the desoldered tantalum capacitors.

The junk board and the desoldered tantalum capacitors.

A through-hole inductor with a deformed/semi-melted plastic cover.

A through-hole inductor with a deformed/semi-melted plastic cover.

A pair of desoldered TO-220 regulators, several two-LEDs-in-one-package SMD LEDs, several SMD resistors, several SMD tantalum capacitors, two SMD inductors, a common-mode choke, and a barrel jack socket.

Desoldered big and small components.

I still have much to learn:

  1. The TH inductor’s plastic cover deformed/semi-melted.
  2. Some nearby TH electrolytic capacitors had their plastic labels semi-melted.
  3. I did not dare to desolder electrolytic capacitors using this hot-air station yet. I saw a YouTube video where they explode when they were being desoldered.

I’ve seen a YouTube video that said the unit is massive and heavy. I’ve never owned or used a hot-air station before so I’ve got nothing to compare this with. Subjectively I do not feel this unit to be heavy and I like how compact the unit is.

See ya folks!