Here is a word of caution. You will have to do board work for all your friends. Seriously, it's an awesome tool.

In my opinion there is nothing for the money that even compares to the Hakko 808. I've used thousand dollar soldering stations that didn't work as well. Shredso is correct that you'll have to do board work for your friends, but you'll look forward to it with the 808. Read the reviews on Amazon, that says it all.

By the way, I don't know if it was a special or not, but Fry's Electronics had the cheapest price by far when I bought mine.

I've been Recommended the Hakko 808 by a friend of mine that does board repairs quite frequently. I believe he is repairing 12 rectifier boards for his weekend project.

For your price range, the 808 will be hard to beat.

I have one in my 'road service' kit, and it works great. I prefer the 470 bench unit with 802 gun. I think you could get one and rebuild it for about the same price as an 808 - but I think I'd still recommend the 808 to a casual user.

+1 to comments here. I got mine 2 weeks ago and have been making excuses to desolder boards. It's just that easy.

i have had two of these so far. the first one fell off the bench and broke in half, so i had to buy another one. i am thinking about getting another one to keep at the house, since i usually leave the current one at the office.

i have used mine literally thousands of times and just love it.

$180 on amazon, free shipping. Might have to pull the trigger. Would make things soooooooooo much easier!

I've been thinking of this for over two years. Thanks to this post, it was enough of a kick in the ass to pull the trigger myself.

I've been on the fence for a while myself and this may cause me to pull the trigger as well

pinside. helping push those over the edge and give into peer pressure since 2009

So much easier. Just do it, you won't be disappointed.

If you do your own board work you will wonder why no one ever told you about it before you used it.

Oh I knew about it, just too lazy to click "buy now". I am literally that lazy.

what are the specific recommended tips from those that own/use the 808?

Clay just used one in a recent repair video for a simpsons pinball party (pins were too thin to use wick), I believe it was the hakko

Good lord that thing is huge, but I guess thats the tradeoff with no base station.

A1003 for transistors, ICs, etc
A1006 for .156 header pins, relays, etc

Don't forget the cleaning pins and cleaning drills!

i don't see the point, unless you're desoldering tons of stuff everyday or you're sloppy at it. desoldering guns are more of a pita than anything. unless you need to break out the big guns for extensive work. kinda doubt it for the majority of pin work. my 808 is still in the box. i use to think the same thing. i need an 808! life will be so much easier. right.

$3.95 does the trick just fine. in and out.

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I had one of those, it's in the garbage now. There really is no comparison of the two.

Those are crap. For like $13 you can get the below which is 100x better, not as good as the 808 above, but 15x cheaper...

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2062731

Careful with those. They are not temperature controlled.

I have been using a Hakko 703b rework station for years best set up for working on any electronics no spinning tips, and comes with either a desoldering pencil or gun and 2x 907 irons.
The 808 is a heavy combersome gun and not recimended for pcb work becouse it will to easily ruin traces if you have to stand on it.
Check ebay for used 703 stations they come up cheap sometimes but even if you pay a bit extra they are definately worth every cent.

LOL.

As others have said, no comparison. Even desoldering coils is made easier by having a constant vacuum available. Your tiny little thing (thats what she said) can't take a giant solder blob, which is 90% of what I find when I look at coils people have soldered in.

Whether its a Hakko 808, 703, or Aoyue 747A+, anyone who desolders once a week should own one.

You'll want the benchtop holder/stand for the 808:

http://www.tequipment.net/Hakko633-01.html

The cleaning drill is used to clean out a clogged tip.

It's a very thin drill bit, the size of the hole of the tip, and a pin vise, to turn the bit by hand.

Sometimes, the bit gets clogged, and the cleaning pin won't clear it. That's where the drill comes in handy.

I held off on ordering one for the longest time. After awhile, I bought one on a whim, and used it to salvage *3* clogged A1003 tips that I had on the shelf, but was unwilling to throw away.

The drill was 13 bucks. I saved 3 tips at 15 dollars a tip, and have cleared 2 clogged tips with it since. I would say it has paid for itself.

I've used the soldapult type desoldering tools in the past. They work OK for some jobs.

The quality of my rework has improved 500% since I started using vacuum desoldering stations. I use mine a lot. I can justify the expense personally because of the frequency I use it.

When I remove an IC from a PCB, you could reuse it if you wanted to. I can desolder a 40 pin PIA and have the holes clean and the chip look new in under 2 minutes, without lifting a trace.

I can't say that for when I used desoldering braid and a soldapult. Of course, I've repaired hundreds of boards at this point, versus just a few back then, so some of my proficiency at this point is undoubtedly from the additional experience gained in repairing more boards.

That A1006 tip, btw, is a godsend on relays, trying to remove a relay with a soldapult or braid is kinda like trying to push a rope.