Best desoldering station on the market?

[0xdeadbeef]

Do you mind if I ask you where did you get it and how much did you pay for it? Does it have controllable temp. settings?

Voelkner and Conrad sell it in Germany:
http://www.voelkner.de/products/529596/OKI-by-Metcal-Loet-Entloetstation-analog-110-W-MFR-1350-10-bis-40-C.html
I bought mine from Voelkner via Amazon and for whatever reason, it was quite a bit cheaper this way back then.

Regarding temperature settings: like any other Metcal/OKi product, the desoldering gun of the MFR-1350 uses a "SmartHeat"
HF approach where the temperature is selected via the tip but actually, letting aside very special applications, you will
always use the default temperature tips. I was also skeptical at 1st but actually not having to care about a temperature
setting is a great relief. Indeed every time I needed to set the temperature on my previous soldering equipment, it was
only because it couldn't keep the set temperature when (de-)soldering stuff from/to the ground plane or other cases
where there was a large thermal capacity. With the SmartHeat stuff, you barely notice that something has high thermal
capacity. Stuff like de-/soldering full metal BNC connectors works like a charm without cranking up the temperature to
crazy values.

[ElectronicsNewbie]

Do you mind if I ask you where did you get it and how much did you pay for it? Does it have controllable temp. settings?

Voelkner and Conrad sell it in Germany:
http://www.voelkner.de/products/529596/OKI-by-Metcal-Loet-Entloetstation-analog-110-W-MFR-1350-10-bis-40-C.html
I bought mine from Voelkner via Amazon and for whatever reason, it was quite a bit cheaper this way back then.

Regarding temperature settings: like any other Metcal/OKi product, the desoldering gun of the MFR-1350 uses a "SmartHeat"
HF approach where the temperature is selected via the tip but actually, letting aside very special applications, you will
always use the default temperature tips. I was also skeptical at 1st but actually not having to care about a temperature
setting is a great relief. Indeed every time I needed to set the temperature on my previous soldering equipment, it was
only because it couldn't keep the set temperature when (de-)soldering stuff from/to the ground plane or other cases
where there was a large thermal capacity. With the SmartHeat stuff, you barely notice that something has high thermal
capacity. Stuff like de-/soldering full metal BNC connectors works like a charm without cranking up the temperature to
crazy values.

Thanks a lot for your input!

Indeed, Metcal looks pretty interesting.
We also have Conrad.pl here but it's a bit more expensive (about 4% more) compared to Conrad.de

So:
Metcal is 687EUR inc. VAT
Pace is 907EUR inc. VAT

Now comsumables:
Pace tips are around 27USD (5-pack) for a standard thermal mass and 60USD for high thermal mass
Pace also has tips to clean the pads that cost 36USD (5-pack)
Pace solder "one cycle life" container costs 14USD (10-pack)

Metcal offers ONLY one tip for 34EUR (both for standard and high thermal mass)
Metcal solder container costs 14 EUR (10-pack)


I think that, when you are replacing in Pace a "one cycle life" container there is no need to replace the small filter within it, where with Metcal you have to add a fresh one.

0xdeadbeef you also have mentioned somewhere about a metal piece that gets smaller, wears out with time?

At first look, the Metcal seemed cheaper then Pace but the tips are way more expensive for Metcal. Replacing a full container seems also to be more expensive...

[0xdeadbeef]

0xdeadbeef you also have mentioned somewhere about a metal piece that gets smaller, wears out with time?

Did I? Can't recall and it's not like anything ever got smaller on my  Metcal/OKi stuff...
Or do you mean the metal wool in the container? If so, see below...

At first look, the Metcal seemed cheaper then Pace but the tips are way more expensive for Metcal. Replacing a full container seems also to be more expensive...

Regarding the containers: I guess you don't want to use them until they are full. However you can use one of them for quite some time if you empty them after each desoldering session.
They are small cartridge barrels with a metal wool pad and a paper filter. Solder gets stuck in the metal wool, but you can take it out and clean it. Actually, you can buy fine
metal wool and put a small ball/pad of it inside the barrel as replacement. So this is IMHO not a real cost factor.
Admittedly, the tips are somewhat expensive. That's a drawback of the SmartHeat stuff. I bought three tips sizes which is good enough for everything I needed up to now.