Hakko 475 Desoldering Station
Hakko 475 Desoldering Station
Hakko is a company with japanese origin. They are famous in the area of soldering
tools. Also desoldering tools.
Why Hakko was a choice?
I already own a Hakko FX-888D soldering station. This is a low-cost product from Hakko, but it offers many advantages, compared to the soldering irons I had in the past.
One very important thing is the time after being switched on, until the iron is usable. The Hakko iron is very fast, about half a minute. My oder irons needed several minutes to become usable. It has also a super-simple user interface, which I like.
In the past I forgot often to switch off an iron after work. Very often, I left the station/iron switched on overnight, even for several days in some cases. This was because these stations/irons had no signal (LED or so) to show that they are switched on. I hate LCDs without backlights. The Hakko has red temperature display, so it is very unlikely to oversee it at the end of work.
So my general feelings about Hakko was already good, when I was in search for a new desoldering solution in 2024. My old solution was too loud and needed too long to become hot and usable. So I looked for an improvement.
I found an old Hakko 475 desoldering station. This product went out of production in 2016. But spare parts still can be found on internet, and it was a quite good solution.
The Hakko 475 has no vacuum pump built in. It has an air inlet, where a compressor could be attached. Inside the 475 there is a thing called ejector, creating a vacuum out of the air pressure. It creates about -0.9 bar from about 5 bar input.
Technology to create a suction from air pressure is called ejector (also: Venturi nozzle) and is a simple version of a jet pump. It has no moving parts and thus can last forever.
Desoldering gun of the Hakko 475 is named “Hakko 809” with 24 volts/50 watts. The iron holder for the gun is named “Hakko 631”. In the picture below, also a new set of A5044 filter elements can be seen.
Inside, look from above:
transformer:
air valve, PCB at right, in combination with the ejector device below to create
suction from air pressure:
air valve technical data: Koganei 100E1-4W, 24 volts, 0.9 MPas = ca. 9.2 bar type:
Setting up Hakko 475
I already have a super-silent air compressor in my lab, so providing air is no problem for me. My air compressor is a 2 cylinder 550 watts / 45 liters compressor.
The air inlet of 475 is called “push in” technology. I was not aware of this technology before, but it is a technique to put together fittings and tubes (and thus devices) with tool-less mechanism. The tube is just pushed into a fitting and this is all to do to have a connection that resists several bars of pressure, working both for water (e.g. in coffee machines) and air, in desoldering stations.
Next image shows some “push in” fittings. 6mm tube diameter is required for Hakko 475.
My compressor delivers 8 bars or so. So I needed a pressure reduction element, one side connected to compressor, the other side has an outlet that goes to the desoldering station. Hakko 475 requires 5 bar input pressure. Over pressure may destroy the soldering station, so correct pressure is important.
Using Hakko 475
Temperature can be regulated between 380 and 480 degrees.
Replacement parts
Some numbers have changed over time. In 2024, I checked availability of some parts that are of interest (actually, I really needed a filter pipe).
- Ceramic Paper filter for gun A5044 (old: A1033). Available with product number A5044 form various sources in 2024.
- Filter spring A1030 (old: A1010). Available via ebay sources in 2024.
- Heating element cover B1723, Nut B1724. Availability not checked.
- Filter pipe B3756 (old: B2073). Available with product number B2073 from few (chinese/japanese) ebay sellers in 2024. I bought two pipes for about 50 Euros delivery and taxes included. These two will last for many years.
- Complete desoldering gun C1183. Availability not checked.