Homebrew PCBs

On Saturday 29 May 2004 02:48 pm, Stefan Trethan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> any ideas which hose can be used for a "solder sucker" tool?
> it will be exposed to high temperature, and vacuum.

I have a home-built solder sucker unit,  and initially started with using 
small-diameter steel tubing (brake line bought at an auto parts store), and 
the same rubber hose that you see all over engines, used as vacuum line. This 
turned out to be rather unsatisfactory in terms of performance -- I couldn't 
get a high enough flow rate through it -- so I changed the fittings and now 
use 1/2" copper tubing and some 5/8" or so clear tubing I picked up at Lowe's 
(home center).

Vacuum is not a problem as it will not be strong enough (with the pump I'm 
using anyway) to collapse the tubing.

Temperature will not be an issue either -- the solder that this thing picks up 
is *solid* by the time it gets into the tubing.

Hardest for me to find was a bit of teflon tubing for the active end of 
things.  I finally went to an electronics distributor and bought a tip made 
for a commercial solder sucker,  they make them without the usual plastic 
shroud around them,  and it works in my setup.