Chose a $40 hot air rework station over my $300 Hakko iron for a Dell laptop jack, and the cheap one won

Skyler Craig · 2026-09-24T00:15:04.186552+00:00

Last Tuesday a regular dropped off a Latitude with a busted DC jack and I had to pick between dragging out my old Hakko soldering iron or the $40 hot air station I got off Amazon two years ago. I went with the hot air at 380C and had the new jack on in 6 minutes with zero lifted pads, where the iron usually takes me 20 and one wrong nudge ruins the board. Any of you still reaching for the iron on these tiny surface mount jobs, or did you all switch to hot air years ago?

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Chose a $40 hot air rework station over my $300 Hakko iron for a Dell laptop jack, and the cheap one won | Computer Technicians - Pinecone Attack