From that spec and its weight, I don’t think their power supply is a wide range switch mode, which I might change sometime.

Mine has the fume sucker which I’m not that bothered about for occasional hobby work. But what I do appreciate is a decent vacuum sucker. I bought the B1002A suction iron (nicely made) and replaced the iron connectors on my station front panel and on the irons I use for 8 way versions. The suction iron needs the on/ off switch wired to the vac pump.

http://www.pcb-soldering.co.uk/aoyue-b1002a-desoldering-gun-and-cable-clone-2.html

Even though this iron is over 20 watts, it works fine and the temperature control is ok. At the moment I just unplug the soldering iron from its single socket to use the suction iron, but I may add a second socket on the front panel with a changeover power relay. I modified one of the vacuum bits to take a very fine 0.5mm bore brass tube. That pushes the vac. pump near to its limit, but it works fine for sucking around smd’s. I attached a 40mm dia. ‘Holster’ made from perforated stainless sheet to the right side of the 968.

If I wanted another workstation, I would definitely look at something with two separate iron sockets and temperature controllers, to use the second for an ‘always on’ desoldering iron. But for the money, what I now have comes pretty close and the warm up time is only about 45 seconds after switching over irons.

If you go inside the case looking for the wires going down the black hose, I bet they are using a similar configuration to the irons. There will be at least 5 wires. i wire will (should!) be a ground. 2 wires will be the heater resistance. And two wires will have a very low resistance like < 1 ohm if they are using a thermocouple sensor. If that pair of wires is open circuit you have your answer. If this is the case, then it's rather sad the element heater circuit defaults to full on if the sensor wires get broken. If you find this kind of very low rsistance sensor, you can buy them with wires for thermo couple type electronic thermometers. But it would be a good idea to use said thermometer to re-check the calibration.

Good Luck

What element is overheating. If its the hotair gun, did you remove the pump lock screw located on the bottom of the unit (it should be labled with a sticker, or painted red)?

If not this screw needs to be removed befor use. It is there to protect the pump during shipping.

First I bought the B1002A desolder gun. 24 volts same as the iron , but a few more watts compared to the iron (but the 968 has a decent size transformer). Same K type thermocouple sensor.
The desolder gun comes with an 8 pole connector, irons are 5 pole. Both stock range at Maplin. Transformer probably won’t run the iron and desolder gun together so I decided to replace their front panel connector with a Maplin 8 pole and change plug on the iron. 2 extra poles on the connector are needed for the vac. pump on/off switch.

Pin connections for oem 5 way are: Pin 1 Blue and PIn 2 Green = element. Pin 3 Yell= case ground, Pin 4 Red and Pin 5 black are the ‘K’ thermocouple.

Pin connections for the desolder gun 8 pole are Pin 1 red and pin 2 Grey+yell = element. Pin 3 blue and pin 5 black = normally open vac switch. Pin 4 brown= case ground. Pin 6 green and pin 7 white = ‘K’ thermocouple. Wire colors may vary, but this is the info to transpose their 5 pole to 8 pole connectors.

Remove the pot nut and desolder the front panel connector to pull the board away. Solder short 25mm colored wires to each used pin of the new 8 pole connector. Match the element, thermocouple and ground to their pcb. The board copper is very poor so clean and tin to the track if the hole pads break. Trace where the 2 brown wires connected to the smoke absorber switch solder to the display board and tack on wires connected to pins 3 and 5 (vac trigger switch). Note you will lose the led ‘on’ function, but you can hear the pump! Replace the front panel board with a couple of M10 washers to increase spacing between the board and 8 pole connector wires.

I cut some thin stainless sheet to make a rest for the desolder gun on the right of the case. I cut 20mm of their fume extractor hose, to make an ‘adapter’ for the thinner B1002A hose so it fits the front vac connector.

In use you have to choose to plug in the iron or desolder gun. No sweat as these both are very fast warm up. Changeover switches or relays could get problematic as the thermocouple resistances are about one ohm. The airflow through the hot air gun drops back some (but still useable) if the desolder gun hose is left connected. Just pull off the hose if you want more air through the heat gun.

This is what they should have produced for the original design – Hot air, soldering iron and desolder gun in one work station. But I’m happy I’ve now got even better value for money!

Excellent fit and finish, worth the extra 50 bucks.
Came with vac pen, lots of air horns, and the desolder handle. Still can’t use the solder/desolder at the same time, but it has lots of power, and the element holder has much better fit than the above model. Think it takes Hakko tips too, but havn’t cooked any yet, and have had for two years now. Order the smallest chisel point you can too.

Just a happy user.

Here are the settings I use for desoldering:
390C temp
~4 airflow

I have no had the chance to test the soldering iron yet but the fume extractor is nice and silent. This review made me purchase my unit from SRA soldering in mass. It was an amazing purchase and was about $175 shipped. I also an Aoyue 328 working platform made for clamping circuit boards.

Also you MUST remove the red screw on the bottom or it will be very noisy and vibrate a lot. the screw is only there to secure the pump during shipping because it normally only has rubber mounts.

Soldering iron is a poor performer. You can have the temp knob cranked all the way and still have trouble soldering a via on a large trace. Anything less than half way on the knob and its pretty useless.

Bottom Line: Hot air gun works good. It gets so hot it will de-solder anything you want. But i still fear it’ll burn my house down. Soldering iron is useless to me–i use my plug-in 35W Weller iron.

I either have a lemon unit or the Aoyue is just plain unreliable. I would not buy this unit again. Spend the extra money and find a higher end one like Pace or Weller.

Zack