Bought a $150 desoldering gun that clogged on the second job

Ngl, I got suckered by the marketing on this thing. Looked all slick in the video reviews on YouTube. First board I used it on was a vintage receiver from the 70s, worked fine. Second job was a newer LED driver board with lead-free solder and it clogged up after maybe 10 joints. Tried cleaning it with the included tools, no luck. Then tried the wire method, still stuck. Ended up having to take it apart and there's this burr inside the nozzle that I can't file down without ruining it. So basically $150 paperweight now. Anyone else find a reliable budget desoldering gun that actually handles lead-free stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

wilson.sam1mo ago

Hold on, let me play the other side of this. A $150 gun is not exactly pro gear, especially if you're hitting it with lead-free solder which is way harder and needs more heat. Most cheap desoldering tools are designed with old school 60/40 solder in mind. The burr you found might just be a manufacturing defect, but also, trying to file down a nozzle on a budget gun is probably gonna make the seal worse and cause even more clogs. Maybe the real issue is expecting a $150 tool to handle commercial grade lead-free work like it's a $400 Hakko.

parkera221mo ago

Man, same exact thing happened to me with a cheap unit till I threw a little flux on the tip first.