Hot Air Soldering

Hot air soldering is to solder and desolder SMD devices. Hot air soldering uses a non-contact soldering convection methodology unlike those contact soldering with a soldering iron.



Hot air soldering stations is the tool required for hot air soldering. They transfer thermal energy to heat up solder joint through hot air. It has outstanding performance. For example, hot air soldering can offer even heating of the board area to be soldered. It offers accurate temperature control. The hot air temperature can be adjusted precisely and the temperature of the component will never exceed the preset hot air temperature. It offers fast cooling which in turn result in small-grained solder joints after reflow. Convection hot air soldering is best suited for ceramic chip resistors, capacitors and placement of fine pitch and ultra-fine pitch semi-conductors for its non-contact and non-contaminating features. The hot contact soldering tool need to physically touch the component or its tiny, fragile, and weak leads which might bend the leads, tweak the SMD, or cause other problems. Cross-contaminating is another problem of the conventional contact style soldering. The contact tools may not completely get rid of dirt, grime, residual flux and adhesives. Thus they may introducing contamination to the PCB to be soldered.

Hot Air Rework Tools

Nowadays, most hot air rework are implemented by hot air rework tools, typically a hot air rework station. A hot air station is simply a controller unit and a heat gun.

You control hot air temperature and the volume of hot air from the station or controller other than the hot air gun. Due to this split design, the hot air gun is usually very light and anti-fatigue. This makes it more comfortable for long time use.

Compared to a traditional hot air gun, these smart hot air rework stations are more user friendly and feature rich. They are favored by both professionals and hobbyists.