New soldering station

[Mark Love Galaxynexus]

Hi everyone! I'm new, but I follow your forum by long time. I'm here to ask you a question about a new soldering station. I usually solder thru-hole components or at least SMD resistor, capacitor or at least some IC like ft 232 or MOSFETs. I saw those two on internet: Atten 8586 and the Aoyue 9378. I found both at the same price, but the atten have also the hotair gun. I read on internet that Atten is not a very good brand and that it only assemblys its products, buying low quality parts from thirt. Aoyue has a metal case, it's ESD safe (I don't know about Atten) and that it has the temperature sensor on the iron, while the atten has a fabric temperature regulation (however it can be trimming adjusted). The only one thing that is questioning me is the hot air... Is it so helpful in SMD soldering? Can I solder some MCU in packages like T-QFP with the only iron? Now I have a lafayette ultra-low cost station, so it's like I don't have anyone. Thanks for replying!;-)

 

[diligence]

When you will be soldering SMD components, hot air may not be required.
But if you have to de-solder (remove the solder) the component, you might find the Hot air gun a handy tool. You can use the hot air to heat up the area around the component (IC) and then use solder Iron to easily remove the IC.

I'll say hot air will be useful if you want to re-solder some components on your PCB.