That's a good point but the unit in our lab area was new last Autumn and has seen little use. It isn't a production environment. To give some idea of how little use it has seen, the reel of solder on the work area has only gone down very slightly. Maybe 20 small PCB/jigs have been made in this time plus some minor rework and a few cables made.
Anyone disassembled it to see if there's a blockage, something is bent, ... (maybe some packing material wasn't removed or something)?
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif.pagespeed.ce.5xOqKkq0Co.gif)
Might be a lot more convenient than returning it, and make the thing useful. Not much to them, so should be a simple matter to investigate IMHO (metal box, some filters, and a squirrel fan w/ hoses attached to the outside of the box).
![Tweak :-/O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiliey_cal.gif.pagespeed.ce.yYMcAvxBJk.gif)
The other annoying aspect of it is that it's hard to move around. You have to pick it up like a huge pot plant. There are no carry straps or handles on it. Whoever designed the 'Human Factors' for this product probably didn't think much beyond "big cheap square metal box with fume hose and mains inlet filter with integral on/off switch and add a filter change lamp"
This type is meant to be stationary as I understand it. FWIW, it's the
Hakko FA-430 that comes to mind when I think of portable, which is made of plastic (has handles molded into the enclosure).
As per handles on the unit at hand, maybe add some?
Drill some holes and use pop rivets /w large pan heads to attach nylon straps while it's still apart after inspection for example (assuming the problem is identified and easily fixed).