Solder Sucker- desoldering pump

I was reluctant to purchase this item due to all the negative reviews. Since all the other solder suckers also have all these bad reviews, I decided to purchase this one and try it out.I am not certain what the bad reviews are about. There seems to be two complaints. I want to address those with my experience.1: Does not suck the solder off the board.I used this several times to repair a LCD monitor. It had no problems sucking the solder off the board. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the solder sucked off the solder point. After reading the bad reviews, I was expecting a lackluster job but it was cleaner than a solder braid.I can only surmise that the people who are having problems are not jamming the tip right up against the lead and the soldering iron tip. Don't worry about burning the teflon, it will be fine as long as you are not holding it against the soldering iron for several minutes.2: Device Jams from solderAgain, I was pleasantly surprised after a few solder joints were sucked clean, when I recharge the unit, it discharged a film of solder. Apparently this unit is self cleaning. Perhaps there was a problem with previous designs. My experience is that the solder is ejected when you recharge the unit.I think one of the problems that can cause this unit to jam is if you do not jam the tip right up against the lead, iron tip, and board. The solder is only partially sucked into the device so some of it gets stuck in the tip, jamming it.If this device is used properly, the solder is sucked clean off the board and then ejected after a few uses.Anyone out there wondering if they should buy this, I would highly recommend it. Test it out a few times before using and see how good the suction is. If it doesn't appear as if the suction is working then the unit, most likely, has a leak somewhere. Open it up and lube the rings and you should be good to go. Use silicon lube.This unit works 100x better than solder braid. Save yourself some aggravation and use this for board repairs.Felix

I have an Aoyue 9378, which is a very amazing soldering station hands down, but with such a powerful soldering station and no way to remove the solder, it feels like an uphill battle.I ordered this after watching a youtube video of a man using his and the efficiency of de-soldering pumps.This pump works flawlessly. If you know how to use it, it will not fail you. The problem most have is perhaps assuming the giant hole at the end of this pen will suck anything into it like a vacuum... but they fail to understand that there is a certain angle to hold it to achieve this result of suction.Holding this with the tip aimed at the solder, won't quite get the result you need. Much like holding a vacuum hose from your houses vacuum, if you hold it at 90degrees(the hose would be lying on the floor parallel to the floor), you won't pick up as much dust as if you hold the end of the hose 20degrees to the floor(the hose almost perpendicular to the floor and the hole almost flush with the foor), forcing the air to be at a higher pressure coming in because there isn't as much open CFM airflow that existed when the hose is not so near the floor. Apply this principle to your new de-soldering pump and keep the pump up close to the solder you just melted, and you will have a very easy time.The first few attempts at this pump were in failure for me, until I slowly decreased the angle of the mouth of the pump until nearly flush with the boards surface, which then gave me the amazing results that I am giving this product 5 stars for.The solder that hardens inside the tip of this unit has not effected the performance at all, and as a very simple method to clean it the solder eventually just falls out in a ultra thin cylindrical sheet as you engage the pump when you use it.No doubt this is to the soldering wick what the bullet is to the arrow.

It's mostly made of aluminum, with a few plastic parts. It disassembles allowing for complete cleaning of the bits of soldier that get sucked into the tube, which is a good thing because with enough little bits of solder the thing eventually stops sucking altogether.The tip is some type of plastic, soldier doesn't stick too easy, but it can. The plunger has a rod that goes all the way down and clears the tip when fully depressed. I did have some solder get stuck in the tip once, but then I just pressed harder and the problem was solved.When you press the trigger the pump lunges toward the tip and when the plunger hits the top it'll pull away a bit(it's done sucking at that point anyway), I suppose if you're working on something really sensitive, or if your PCB is in fact a potato chip this might cause problems, I have had no problems with that aspect of it.It doesn't suck enough. Want more suction? spend more, this is a $5 tool, not a $40 tool

For some reason, this showed under "Weller," a good brand known for quality, but the actual description says the brand name is Parts Express. I'm not sure what that's about but the actual pump doesn't have any Weller branding on it. At first, that was disappointing but the pump is a good weight and pretty sturdy so it appears, so far, to be of decent build quality.It has a self-ejection function, which is a good plus. When you recharge it (by pressing the plunger), you just press it a little bit past the "click" and you'll see the metal tip come out of the end forcing out the solder.The plastic tip seems pretty hearty too. I've touched it against the soldering iron a few times and other than discoloration, it hasn't been an issue. The cheap ones will often melt or deform simply by getting them too close to the iron. It's nice you can easily find and order a replacement tip for when it does eventually get damaged: just Google "standard replacement tip #370-031". It's $2.25 on the manufacturer's site.It picks up solder okay. Really old electronics with corroded solder and/or higher lead content are a bit tougher but I don't have any other solder sucker to compare it to on that point. Given the good quality of the tip, you can (and have to) get really close to the soldering iron when you hit the button to release the plunger. A couple "plunges" on a joint take care of most of it. I still have to heat the contact a bit more to loosen the last bits of solder holding the component to the PCB but it's still much easier and cleaner than soldering braid.It also helps if you apply a little new solder to the joint before desoldering. The new solder holds heat better and keeps the joint hotter for that extra split second when you pull the soldering iron away and hit the plunger button.

I bought this because I really could have used it a few months ago while building an Elenco radio, not knowing when I would be soldering electronics again but wanting to have it on hand. It turned out to be really useful while I was soldering stained glass yesterday after I’d overblobbed too much solder on a detailed area. I ripped this doodad out of its package and put it to use deblobbing and it worked wonderfully. I wondered what would happen to the solder inside the pump, but one squeeze and it came out the nozzle as a solid little solder tube. Neato! This tool saved me time and frustration, and I’m really happy I got it.

Cheap, simple tool that gets the job done. Feels kind of cheaply made but I haven't had any problems with it, and it definitely produces enough suction to remove liquid solder. Eventually after it has sucked up enough solder it will jam, but this is easy to fix: the bottom and top halves can be unscrewed from one another (like a clicky pen) to remove the solder. Just open it up and dump out the solder flakes, screw the halves back together, and it's good to go. But please don't dump the solder in the trash; there's a good chance it has lead in it and we don't need more lead getting into the water supply. Instead, dispose of it the same way you would old batteries and electronic devices: an e-waste bin.

Got this to help with the obvious issue -- my soldering isn't superb and I sometimes get a bit too much on my work. There are times too when I'm de-soldering a component and there's need to clean up the earlier traces and blobs. This is a simple mechanical plunger that does this very well. You depress the plunger against an internal spring until it latches; position the nib to best effect near the liquid solder; then press the black button to release the plunger and remove the solder. Pfft! no blob. The solder is dispersed inside the tube, which means, yeah, it gets all over the spring and the back of the plunger. This also cools the solder rapidly and you never feel any heat through the tube wall. Dispersing the solder all over may sound like a design flaw but it's really not. It's easy to clean, and you don't need to do it but once in a long while. By my calculations, if a solder blob is a 2mm sphere, the solder sucker could hold up to 500 blobs easily.Pros:* Very lightweight and easy to handle* Few moving parts and no electronics (read: simpler the better)* Replaceable gasket* Goes for hundreds of uses before emptying it is even at all a concernCons:* None, really, though the gasket is a bit at risk of being nicked or cut when you reassemble the device after its (very) occasional cleaning. This isn't a big deal, but just something to be aware of and gentle with.General thoughts:Glad I got it, and given that I don't do a ton of soldering, I don't think I'll need to upgrade this anytime soon. It's perfect for my needs with circuit boards and small components.

If I had looked closer at the picture of the tool, I likely would have seen that the upper half of the body is plastic, not metal. Knowing that, I would not have purchased the product. The problem is that the plastic upper portion of the tool attaches to the metal lower half via shallow, fine threads. Each time the spring is released, the plunger slams into the top half of the tool, stressing the threads. With repeated use, the threads strip and the tool is no longer useful. Your frequency of use will determine if the durability of the tool is a problem for you. For me, based on experience with a similarly constructed tool, durability is a concern. The alternative is to buy a tool in which both halves are constructed of metal. The all metal tool I had lasted about 10 years before the plastic trigger button finally succumbed to the repeated shock of the plunger/spring.The tool is inexpensive enough that I will not return it, but I will be more cautious when I order its replacement.