Introducing the incredible Hakko 808 desoldering gun! I’ve only used it once before this video, but I can already see why people like these things. After spending so much time fighting through-hole components with a soldering iron and braid, a tool that heats the joint and sucks the solder away feels like a rather wonderful invention.

The Hakko 808 combines a heated nozzle with a built-in vacuum pump, which makes removing ordinary through-hole components considerably easier. I thought I’d give it a proper demonstration by taking a failed electrolytic capacitor off an old circuit board.

There are quite a few accessories in the box, including spare nozzles and cleaning tools. Some of them are more obvious than others, but I’m sure they all have perfectly important jobs. Best not to throw anything away just because I haven’t figured out what it does yet.

One thing worth mentioning is that my Hakko 808 is a 110 V model. Since I’m here in Australia with a 240 V mains supply, I need to run it through a suitable step-down transformer. Plugging it directly into the wall would be a particularly expensive way to end a product demonstration.

For the test I’ve got an old board with a failed capacitor that needs replacing. The idea is simple: heat each solder joint with the Hakko nozzle, activate the vacuum and clear the solder from the holes. In the video, both holes come out remarkably clean and the old capacitor is removed without the usual battle. That is good. Damn good!

Of course, removing the old component is only half the job. I still need a soldering iron to install the replacement, which raises an obvious question: can’t somebody combine all these tools into one enormous contraption?

This is also why I bought the Hakko in the first place. I’ve got more through-hole desoldering ahead of me, including work on my Sophia boards. I show one of those boards in the video and talk about the capacitors I’ll be tackling next, although that work is still a plan at this point rather than something completed here.

For through-hole components, I can already see this becoming one of my favourite tools. I’m not quite ready to throw away the solder braid, because there’s still plenty of surface-mount and fine-pitch work where it has its place, but the Hakko 808 certainly makes this particular job a lot easier.

The nozzle gets extremely hot, so naturally it deserves the same care as any other soldering equipment. For this capacitor, though, the results speak for themselves!

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