Review: ZD-915 Desoldering Station
- by Harry Baggen
- Reading time: 7 min
Soldering is usually a pleasant thing to do, but desoldering components is not easy — especially if you want to reuse that particular component. Many makers do this with their soldering iron and desoldering wire, but those who need to do this more often should consider buying a decent desoldering station. It does not even have to be that expensive, as this review of the Zhongdi ZD-915 shows.
Soldering a circuit together is usually a fun and rewarding job, but desoldering components on an (old) printed circuit board takes a bit more effort, especially if you want to remove that particular component in one piece for possible re-use. Many hobbyists do this with their soldering iron and desoldering wire or a tin sucker, but if you need to do this job more often you should consider buying a real desoldering station. That does not even have to be expensive, as this test of the Zhongdi ZD-915 shows.
Anyone who has ever tried to remove a 16-pin IC from an old printed circuit board without damaging the IC knows that this is not always an easy job. Especially if you regularly work on vintage equipment like pinball machines, jukeboxes and computers, then you know that old parts are often very expensive and need to be replaced carefully. For such applications, a desoldering station is an ideal tool. At least for wired parts, for SMD's often other solutions are needed to remove them (otherwise the small parts get sucked along!).
A desoldering station is an integrated combination of a soldering iron and a tin sucker, using a hollow tip on a heated hollow pin. When the pump in the soldering station is activated, air is sucked up through the tip and the hollow pin, taking the solder residues with it and ending up in a reservoir. This sounds very simple and in fact it is, but the way it is done determines to a large extent how well such a desoldering station functions and how well it still performs after a while.
What's in the box?
In the box of the ZD-915 we find a large base station with an LCD screen, a separate mains cable, a desoldering gun with two cables/hoses (one for the air suction and one for the electrical supply wires), three tips with hole diameters of 0.8, 1.0 and 1.3 mm, three needles to clean the tips and some spare filters for the collection reservoir (Figure 1).This ensures that the solder that has been sucked up, remains in the tube against the filter. The box also contains a holder with cleaning sponge for the desoldering gun, which can be attached to the right-hand side of the base unit. The power of the gun is 80 W and the temperature can be set from 160...480° C. According to the description, the station is ESD-safe.
In practice
The base unit is equipped with a Euro mains socket with integrated mains fuse on the rear. The mains cable supplied can be used to connect the unit to an earthed socket. After attaching the holder to the side of the unit, we connect the two hoses of the desoldering gun to the front (the air hose via an adapter). Both are reasonably flexible and they are one metre long, which is a pleasant length to work with. The device can then be switched on using the red power switch. The display lights up with a blue backlight and shows the spot temperature on top and the set value below (Figure 3).The first thing you notice after switching on is the rather noisy fan that is located at the back of the casing. This is not something you want to hear all the time while working, but you will most likely only turn the station on when you are really going to use it. Then, we start desoldering on an old PCB. Because the solder islands I want to practice on are not that big, I start with a temperature of 350 degrees and that seems to work quite well. I had to get used to it the first time when, after pressing the button on the desoldering gun, the vacuum pump in the station starts to operate, it makes a kind of rattling noise. Anyway, apart from that, the desoldering iron works perfectly. First heat up a soldering point with the gun for a few seconds, then press the button and the solder is gone. In this way you can remove a large multi-lead IC from a PCB. The solder remains in the glass tube and can be removed after the desoldering job. When finished, the gun can be placed back in its holder (Figure 4). Be careful to place the gun in the right way, then it will stay in place and the tip does not touch the shield..
Conclusion
Apart from the audible noise from the fan and pump, this Zhongdi ZD-915 is a very useful and especially an affordable desoldering station that does its job well. Cleaning is reasonably easy once you know how to remove the glass tube and put it back together again. By the way, there are many videos on YouTube showing how this ZD-915 can be made more silent with a few modifications, how the collection of solder can be improved and how the suction power can be increased. This is a real challenge for a serious electronics hobbyist!
You can check out the Zhongdi ZD-915 on our store by clicking here
Translation: Hans Adams