Desoldering Station

Some time ago I bought a lot of Weller soldering irons at an auction for cheap.  Between these where a few DSX 80 de-soldering irons.

I also had an old Weller IG101 solder station (bought earlyer from another hobbyist), unfortunately I had no iron for this one and the DSX 80 could not be connected to this one. Time to convert the IG101 to newer standards.

IG101 station:

To use this station a few alterations where required. Most important is that it is 24V input, I want to change this to 230V. Also I did not like the connection for the vacuum to be on the side of the unit, so I moved it to the front (same as the modern units). The vacuum is created by a venturi valve, the air output of this valve is still on the side, since the enclosure was too small for another bend.

First I closed the old holes for the air connections and added a cut-out for a 230V power connector. The cover will later be painted making these “fixes” invisible.

I placed the valve on the bottom of the enclosure. On top of the valve a metal plate to mount the toroid transformer (2x12V 100VA)

Next the front panel was changed to incorporate the vacuum connection, Nokia 5110 LCD and buttons.

The old electronics where replaced with a new board driven by a PIC microcontroller.

Old:

New:

Circuit diagram:

The finished result:

Mounted next to a standard solder station:

In use:

Downloads:

Firmware: Link