With a larger rework job in sight I pulled the trigger on quality SMD tweezers from Ersa. So far I have used SMD tweezers from Ayoue (total crap!) and JBC (not that good either).
Ersa has two kinds of SMD tweezers: the chip tool and the vario tool. I choose the chip tool because it was relatively cheap as a package deal with a soldering station. I already have 3 Ersa soldering stations but the chip tool has an 8 pin plug where my existing soldering stations all have a 4 pin plug. I know most of the irons can be made to work on either system but I didn't want to take the chance with the chip tool because it appearantly has 2 heating elements in series. Also the hassle of making a conversion cable didn't cover the difference in price. So I ended up with yet another Ersa soldering station (the Digital 2000A):
![](https://c5.staticflickr.com/8/7704/27405249396_b72de25ee6_b.jpg)
And the chip tool with accesoires:
![](https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7364/27367500361_8ac5e0e243_b.jpg)
The chip tool comes with the tips which are inserted as shown in the picture. I bought the extra tips along with it. I don't think I'll ever use the needle pointed tips but I got them just in case. Tips this small usually don't allow enough heat to flow to a soldering joint. The tweezers can be adjusted for maximum and minimum opening widths. Not shown are a spunge and an abrassive brass wool soldering tip cleaner. I very much prefer to use a spunge because it is less likely to damage the soldering tip.
Ersa came up with a smart way to keep the tips aligned:
![](https://c4.staticflickr.com/8/7162/27439302155_0bca67b2f9_b.jpg)
The cylinder thinghy with rings clamps onto the fixed part of the tweezers. The cylinder also has an alignment hole for a ring which can be clamped onto the tip. The alignment rings can be bought seperately so you can have a several sets of tips with the alignment rings in place so you don't have to re-align the tips everytime you swap tips in the chip tool. I have not seen this before on SMD tweezers I have used so far. Unfortunately a small Allen (hex) key wasn't included; I guess Ersa assumes a decent electronics lab has them. In my case that assumption was right! Oh crap... Looking at the pictures I now see the Allen key is attached to the tweezers
![Face Palm :palm:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/facepalm.gif)
Where is the 'hit yourself with a hammer' emoticon?
For the rework job I needed to unsolder a couple of hundred 0402 and 0603 parts. I used the circular/edged tips for this job and it went flying. Ofcourse the tips get cruddy after a while but after a quick re-tinning the tips where good as new. Just as I expected based on my experience with soldering tips from Ersa.
There is also remarkably little play between the points of the tweezers. With the JBC SMD tweezers I have used previously I also had to use my fingers to align the tips but with the Ersa chip tool it is just point & squeeze to unsolder a component.
Besides the tips I got there are many other tips available for the chip tool to unsolder many other packages like SOIC, TQFP, etc but with 2x20W of power I doubt it works as well as hot air for bigger parts. OTOH the chip tool allows for a much more controlled application of heat compared to a hot air station.
I also bought these pliers to change tips since they where not that expensive and seemed like a nice tool to have:
![](https://c3.staticflickr.com/8/7343/27405249626_488219a2f7_z.jpg)
BTW the pliers originally come with a spring to keep them open but since I really hate that I removed the spring.
edit: typos