Hi. Im on a very limited budget for my electronics hobby and limited space on my desk, but i still appreciate using some good equipment when soldering.
I used to have a soldering station with additional hot air from Aliexpress, but since the quality was not the best and it was taking a lot of space on my desk, a while ago i have decided to invest some money and - since i dont do a lot of large smd chips, ditch the hot air - and instead buy the following:
* Pinecil for soldering away from my desk
* T245 tip + components for building an Unisolder.
This sounded like a best "value for money" move i can make - not loosing much, gaining a lot (space on my desk, quality irons which heat up quickly and maintain the temperature + mobility) and it only stretched my budget for soldering tools by a bit.
I have already done all of that, but as soon as i sold the hot air i have realized that I'm not longer able to desolder even a simple 8 pin through-hole resistor matrix with the tools I've got. I havent thought about it earlier, but I do quite a lot of desoldering, so this is a major problem for me and i dont have money within my soldering equipment budget to fix it. Obviously, im aware that i will need to spend some extra money, but i want to find an optimal solution to get a quality desoldering gun, but saving money and desk space.
The perfect solution would be a JCB station (so i can still use T245 handle and tips which i bought) with desoldering pump but for around £100 used (something like Hakko 470/808 but from JBC), but i cannot find anything from JCB with a build in pump that cheap. Are there any other brand stations or opensource projects which work with T245s and support desoldering pumps?