Regarding desoldering tools, I also hate solder suckers and instead use a mix of desoldering stations and desoldering braid. I used to very heavily use desoldering tools in challenging situations, such as large traces/joints covered with a lot of flux residue or conformal coating. I ended up working my way up the Hakko desoldering line and developed some opinions.
The Hakko 808 is discontinued and the FR-301 seems to be the current replacement. I used a FR-301 for a while and it was a fine tool. I've now switched over to a FM-2024 which connects to a FM-206 base station (among others). I found out that with heavy use I had many more issues with the FR-301 due to the longer tube between the nozzle tip and the solder capture chamber. The FM-2024 has a much shorter tube and the nozzle is integral with the tube. These factors make the FM-2024 more reliable and easy to clean under heavy use. The FM-2024 is also more lightweight and can be used with a gun or pencil grip. So if you do a lot of desoldering, desolder a lot of gunky/fluxy stuff, or have/want a compatible Hakko soldering station, I would suggest the FM-2024 over the FR-301.
Interesting - though for nearly £1900+VAT for the FM-206 (including hot-air and soldering tools as well as desoldering to be fair but excluding tips and nozzles) I'd hope it performs a lot better indeed!
As someone who owns a FA430 and has a sensitivity to flux fumes causing headaches and drowsiness, I agree with everything in this comment. Keep in mind you can become sensitized to flux fumes after repeated exposure (happened to me) so IMO it's better to go overkill on fume extraction before it becomes a problem.
I would add a good fume extractor as a must-buy to this list if you're soldering once a week or more. The fumes from flux are noxious and prolonged exposure can cause sensitization. I have always been slightly sensitive to flux fumes, so since I began soldering on a daily basis for work I have always used some form of fume ventilation. I use a lot of the MG Chemicals 835 flux mentioned in the article. Even with a ducted extraction fan removing the smoke from my workspace, I began to develop headaches and fatigue from exposure to the flux vapor. These symptoms worsened over time and began starting with less and less exposure. Now I use a fancy Hakko FA430 extractor, which has a bulky HEPA filter and allows me to solder all day without ill effects. Even so, I watch my exposure and have drastically reduced my liquid flux use as just the flux aroma can make me feel a little off. I believe I have been permanently sensitized from using sub-optimal ventilation and that's not a good feeling.
I don't think you need to go buy the $700 FA430 I use, but I would say the extractor needs to have:
- a hose/duct that can be positioned right at the soldering site
- some kind of HEPA filtration or equivalent, even if it is exhausted outside your workspace
- well sealed ducting/hose/fan housing, so fumes don't leak out. I first used a duct fan with some hoses and loc-line for fume extraction, and I now believe it was leaking fumes into my workspace the whole time because the system wasn't airtight :(
Those little "benchtop extractors" with a fan and a carbon filter are absolutely useless. I wouldn't be surprised to learn companies buy them for "regulatory compliance purposes" as they don't really do much of anything except be cheap.
Those little "benchtop extractors" with a fan and a carbon filter are absolutely useless.
If I soldered a lot more often, I might feel differently, but as it is I sorta disagree with this sentiment. All I use for soldering is a combination of one of these[1] "fume extractor" devices and a cheapo $10 desk fan I bought at Walmart.
Now maybe I'm just not inclined to be particularly sensitive to flux fumes, but with the bench fan blowing towards my soldering area, and the "fume extractor" sucking away from it on the other end, I don't notice soldering fumes at all. If I don't turn the fans on though, the difference is acute. I never solder more than a few seconds without realizing I've made that mistake on the occasions when it happens as I notice the fumes immediately otherwise.
Now I'm not saying that this combo is the be-all, end-all, or that it's compliant with any particular regulatory regime, nor am I even saying that it's sufficient for anybody in particular. I'm just saying that to say that a setup like this is "absolutely useless" is not correct, in my experience.
It's "absolutely useless" because it doesn't do the thing its advertised to do, which is extract fumes from your workspace. It dilutes and mixes the air right in front of your face, but your workspace will still gradually fill with solder fumes as you work. If you're an infrequent solderer, that may be fine. But if you are making a habit of soldering, or its your job, get something that actually filters or removes the fumes. I'm giving this advice because I used a setup as effective as yours for years and it caused me health problems through sensitization even though it seemed ok for a long time.
Sure, which is why I said If I soldered a lot more often, I might feel differently. Context has to be taken into account. I'm speaking from the position of being a hobbyist who solders every now and then, and not for hours at a time at that.
For somebody who solders regularly and or does so for hours on end, I would totally agree with the need for a more purpose built and effective fume extraction setup.
I've been recently trying to set up a soldering station at home and am still in the research phase. I haven't been able to find one cheaper than the FA-430. It's weird as you can get a nice air purifier with a HEPA filter in it for much cheaper than the FA-430. I don't plan on soldering all that much, and so had been looking at the FA-400. I was assuming it was better than nothing.
My belief is that people who review the FA-400 positively would be as well served by a regular fan (and even better served by a box fan with a decent furnace filter in front of it). Possibly they are infrequent users or just not sensitive to flux fumes like I am. My understanding is that activated carbon filters like in the FA-400 rapidly lose effectiveness when exposed to the air.
It's probably possible to DIY something as effective as the FA-430 by adapting an existing purifier or fan, as long as you carefully seal the pre-filter path. Since I use the extractor every day in a workshop with coworkers, I need something durable and idiotproof with parts and filters easily available. So it made sense for us to shell out for the FA-430.
As a personal experience, I'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke, but not at all to soldering fumes.
It's probably better to be an upgrade rather than a must-buy for a beginner. One can invest on the extractors later when he or she found the fume is hard to tolerate, or save for something else if it's not a problem.
Yeah that or just use a $1 PC fan to direct the fumes away from your eyes like I've been doing for the last decade. If you solder <100 joints in one session like the average hobbyist, a normal HVAC system that does >4 air changes per hour should have no trouble cleaning up the diffused fumes.
ADS-B Exchange used to have another incentive to feed in the form of free API access, subject to certain limits and for noncommercial use only. They stopped that a year or two ago, I believe because various commercial operations kept abusing it.
Not true -- I currently access the API to obtain an aggregated feed in exchange for my feeding ADSB-X with my receivers (1090 and 978 MHz). You have to ask for access and it's poorly documented but it works and feeds my own local tracking site running 24.7.
They specifically removed the text on the website saying you can get API access from feeding, replaced this with a link to their paid RapidAPI (under "Enthusiast Usage Terms") and no longer automatically give you API access with an active feeder key. That seems like a pretty clear message even if they made an exception for you. Besides, how long do you think your free access will last under the new ownership?
EDIT: In their FAQ it currently states: "In very limited situations ADSBexchange.com may choose to allow non-profit, research, or educational entities access to the historical data or API at reduced fee, in these situations such entities must meet all other requirements including hosting a feeder. ADSBexchange.com API pricing is a fraction of the cost of ADS-B data available anywhere else." To me that is quite different than their previous policy of providing automatic noncommercial API access to anyone hosting a feeder. It removes an incentive to feed and discourages use of the API.
Well, dang. I have been maintaining a Twitter bot that uses the ADS-B Exchange API, but paused development after Musk started going after ElonJet aggressively and Twitter began to ban aircraft tracking accounts. I just restarted work this week to implement Mastodon support, but looks like I need to pause again to reassess what ADS-B data source(s) to support.
I would really like to know the story behind this acquisition as my previous interactions with the ADS-B Exchange owner (edit: after checking back in on the discord maybe this person was not the owner, but one of the main team members) on discord were positive and they seemed like a very passionate and principled person. This was like more than 1 year ago now, though. My suspicion is that the loud, polarized public discourse around the ElonJet controversy, which led to ADS-B Exchange getting banned from Twitter, may have caused them to reassess their priorities. I hope they are not under any kind of legal threat from Musk.
Perhaps that commenter observed that the author of the paper seems incredibly personally invested in the success of this method and tends to personally attack any detractors without regard to the soundness of the criticism. The author seems to also have a lot of fans who do the same. Publicly engaging with a person like that requires a certain tolerance for crankiness that not everyone possesses.
I just changed a filter in my air purifier after having it next to the kitchen for about 6 months. The prefilter was covered in a layer of cooking oil mixed with dust. The built in air quality monitor always shows poor air quality wheen cooking. Its no joke, especially in places that have poorly constructed/cheap stove ventilation.
True, I would also add that a major contributing factor to the danger of the group B era was absolutely horrendous race organization and scheduling, creating dangerous situations for competitors and spectators. Most notably and tragically at Portugal in 1986. While Gr.B cars required great skill, the danger of the cars themselves was perhaps overemphasized by Jean Marie Balestre's FISA to direct blame away from their own organization and on to the manufacturers.
Even today you'll see dangerous conditions in long distance desert racing due to unstructured roads and inadequate crowd barrierrs (for those that travel out to the dune whoops to see things go bad:
